From The Governor's Desk

Nasi Kerabu – When Eating is Art

2009-06-04T10:12:00.004+08:00

“Nasi Kerabu” literally means assorted vegetable rice or rather “Salad Rice”. Gastronomically speaking, it is rice served with special coconut-based gravy called “tumis” together with local herbs, leaves and vegetables. Apart from that, it is also served with fried fish, “keropok” (fish crackers), salted egg, "solok lada" (fish fillet and coconut-stuffed chillis) and pickled garlic. Of all you know the beautiful flower in the picture is the key to the real aroma and taste of nasi kerabu.

Nasi Kerabu is one of the classic specialties originated from Kelantan, a multicolored state of Thailand border in the northeastern coast of the Malaysian Peninsular with multi-faceted and interesting people as her denizens. The only not-so-cool thing about them is the potential of running amok and start burning things when their darling state team loses in the football match (soccer to the Americans), but as a counterbalance, I can assure you this is the land that produces the most beautiful girls in the country.

If one is adventurous in trying out different taste of victuals and gamed for gourmet foods, the right place to be at is no other than Kelantan state, located some 450 km from Kuala Lumpur. If you ever planned for a visit to this country, I’d advise you to take connecting flight right away upon your landing at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

One of those that ought to be tasted is “Nasi Kerabu”. No, no, no…. it’s not like the one you tasted from the stalls in Kg Baru, Keramat and Pantai Dalam in Kuala Lumpur, different from the one selling over in Permas Jaya, Johore, dissimilar to the one offered in Geylang, Singapore, and far off from the taste that selling in Ipoh and Penang for that matter. I even ate nasi kerabu in Bloomington, Indiana in the USA those days, but my taste benchmark is rather of a higher bar.

The real taste of “Nasi Kerabu” is not easily found as the recipe is a well-kept secret, closely guarded that being passed down from one generation to another among the Kelantanese people, as much as pizza is eaten the world over, and yet the real taste can only be found in Italy, perhaps the pride of the Sicilian folks. Just like sushi can be found in New York, Paris, London and Kuala Pilah but the real thing can only be enjoyed in certain districts in Japan, and tell me about Cajun cuisine and beignets (pronounced like "ben-yays"), the unique specialties to the descendants of Acadian exiles in Louisiana or maybe some parts of Mississippi, USA. Oh, it reminds me of the best Burrito, Taco de Harina and Tortilla I have ever tasted just a few miles crossed the border from El Paso, Texas, in the Mexican territory. But, the paradox of them all, I couldn’t find “Mee Bandung” when I was in Bandung, Indonesia, same goes to “Nasi Pattaya” when I was in the coastal resort township of Pattaya, Thailand. (LOL! Errr…. we have foodstuff named after foreign places, thus, understandably, they don’t exist in the actual locality)

One of the myriad secrets in preparing "goooood" nasi kerabu is the use of the flower in the picture above as coloring for the rice to be served (although some sellers in the city use artificial equivalents). Beats me on the name of the flower because I only know it called as “Bunga Nasi Kerabu” (“Bunga” is flower). Handful of these flowers need to be grinded and squashed to yield its juice with little water add. The precious extract of it is then mixed with water the time rice is cooked. And voila, it will result with blue-colored rice when it is ready.

Blue-colored rice for Nasi Kerabu is no fun and game as it is always served like that for centuries in this colorful state of Kelantan.

An Old Lady in “Smuta”

2009-05-26T12:28:00.003+08:00

“Mok Cik, ambo puko gamba sbutir deh?” (Ma’am, do you mind me taking a picture?)
“Hok aloh…. puko wat ggapo nyo?!!” (Goodness…. what’s this for?!!)

That’s the exchange of words between me and this old lady. Despite of her reply sounds like a hint of protest; she paused and looked into my lens and I took it as consent. Before she had time to think on what’s next to say, I already had done capturing her. I gave her silly grin in return and walked past her with slight bow without thanking her. Least spoken about the verity of the local culture, particularly in this state – in certain conditions, the word “thank you” is not necessarily uttered out when the gesture is more than sufficient displaying the gratitude and appreciation. And the other party would understandably take it as thanks.

This is happened in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Kota Bharu is the capital town for the state of Kelantan, located some 450 km away to the northeast of Kuala Lumpur, not far from Thailand border.

Make no mistake; if next time you see old woman with pastel-colored headgear made out of a sheet of speckled floral-motif fabric like the woman in the picture is wearing, she must be from this place. Locally, the traditional headgear she is wearing is known as “smuta” and the said thin floral-motif fabric used is called “kain lepas”.

There are no specific rules on how to wear it but the motive is to have the whole length of the 2-foot x 5-foot “kain lepas” to be wrapped around the head to form as “hat”. The headgear of “smuta” is actually prevalent to be worn by men but the women of old would do such as well. More often than not, those days, women would use this as a buffer to cushion up loads carried on top of their heads while men would rather wear it as part of fashion and also as a practical mean just like bandana is worn in the west.

Such a pity, we even hardly found men walk around in “smuta” in Kota Bharu these days. And it never happened in Kuala Lumpur. I am sure it’ll be a head turner with a barrage of wolf-whistles to be accrued if one is wearing it here in Kuala Lumpur.

Luring Snakeheads In Puncak Alam

2009-05-22T15:19:00.003+08:00

It doesn’t take much money to make me happy. Spending my morning on weekends at places like this to me is a luxury thing to do. And with such elements right before my eyes, it never fails to entice that precious little feeling in me.

This place is located in my backyard, known as Puncak Alam, which takes less than 10 minutes drive from my house. The place, more of a pond than a lake, is far cry from the bustling of livelihood, quiet it seems. Only once a while you’d be stirred by the foolhardy sounds coming from big but cheap exhaust pipe of a car running down the almost deserted road tens of meters away from the water’s edge. I hate it when it disrupts the thoughts I was harboring, feel like giving the driver a real sports car as a present.

There are a lot of snakehead fish (we call it “ikan haruan” locally) in this pond. I came a few times already checking on the activities of the snakeheads in it. Pretty soon I’ll bring over my kids to fish here.

I doubt I am in position to give you helpful tips on how to capture beautiful landscapes but if you ask me tips on how to catch snakehead fish, I think I can be very accommodating.

Catching snakeheads requires special skills unlike catching some other types of silly fish. If you’re gamed for this, I would start by advising you on the type of lures to be chosen at the fishing shop apart from the types and sizes of hooks and strings needed. Snakeheads would likely to snatch on moving lures as compared to using worms or palette as baits. Yeah, you may use crickets as baits but often time your rhythm will be sporadic with downtime to replace the baits. On top of it, crickets do not give those sexy dances when it is hooked and drowned. Anything flashy and sparkly with nice little dance when it is pulled in the water would surely look appetizing to the snakeheads that make them lose their minds.

I will also share with you on the habits of snakeheads and teach you how to make studied guesses on their possible party time and places for resting, feeding and breeding by looking at the conditions and activities in the pond.

With the right knowledge, right tools and right skills, I’ll make sure you won’t be fishing like silly but put the snakeheads on the silly side instead. Or else it makes me a silly advisor.

Note: Strongly advised to view the image above On Black

The Story of a Cup of Tea

2009-05-12T16:22:00.001+08:00

Has it ever occurred to you a stranger offers you drink from a cup that exclusively served for him? If that’s already peculiar to your norm, so then what’s the odd like for you to accept it if it does?

The odds were against me.

Firstly, upon seated right in front of him, there was a cup of tea readily served for him. He offered me to have it. Reasonably, I refused the offer as I thought it was out of mind to drink from the cup that served for someone else. The offer then turned insist when he was adamant to have me drink it. The reason being, it was freshly delivered and he could always order for another cup and perhaps as an honor to me as his guest.

I conceded defeat upon his obstinacy and kindness. I had to take it as a kind gesture from him and started drinking moments after. I could see him happy watching me sipping it amidst of my struggle controlling my composure when the tea was a little too hot pattering on my tongue. Little did I know he had to go without his morning tea when he later said he didn’t feel like it to have a drink, and left me feel sorry with slight mixture of silly.

That is the incident when I first met him. He prefers me to call him Pak Ngah Ya. In my short conversation with him at the mosque, I learned that he was a commando in the Armed Forces before he retired in 1990. Now he devotes his time for some religious work at Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Mosque, Shah Alam.

When Lady Luck Decided To Take Side

2009-04-28T12:15:00.003+08:00

It had been a nerve-wrecking ball game on the other part of the globe over in London, England when the Reds, the Anfield club Liverpool edged over Hull City with 3-1 win. The Reds kept up the pressure on the Devils, the Old Trafford club Manchester United at the top of the Premier League table. While here in Malaysia, almost at the same time last Saturday April 25th, 2009 at the National Stadium, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, we were dealing with reds of our own. Our reds, The Red Warriors of Kelantan and The Red Giants of Selangor, red & white and red & yellow respectively were facing one another in the mother of all football matches – in the Malaysian FA Cup final.

Pardon me for not displaying the picture of the football game (as I don't have any), only a ticket in my son Edrin’s hand, taken prior to the time my three kids and I left for the stadium, 50km away from home. My children left their mom behind whilst I left not only wife behind but my camera as well as I didn’t want it to intervene with my sole purpose to enjoy good ball game and to really feel the ambience and dynamics of the place, as much as I didn’t want to intervene with my wife’s sense of fun with my shouts and screams right into her ears during the height of the match.

The stadium was bursting at the seams with its full capacity of 90,000 spectators – perhaps yet another record of full-house for this state-of-the-art stadium. The sights and sounds were just magnificent. You have to be there to feel the gravity of it with spectacular sight of Kelantan supporters decked in red & white while the Selangor came in red & yellow, occupying half of the circle each on the packed 3-tier terraces of the stadium. And the very sounds of thundering roars of fans from both sides have made an excellent atmosphere that even stood up the least excitable geeks and morons.

The match went into extra-time as the score tied at nil-nil after the official 90-minute playtime was over. In the second minute of the extra-time, Kelantan opened scoring that sent the fans into frenzy, and I too shouted my lungs out, and was amazed seeing my girl Fara got excited just as much. Let alone my boys Sam and Edrin, I saw them jumped as high as the stadium. Again, you should have witnessed the way Kelantan fans rocked the stadium and observed the looks in the faces of Selangor fans – the most pathetic look I have ever seen in the so-called “Red and Yellow Giants”. Kelantan fans were celebrating thinking that it will be their day. However, their celebrative moods were short-lived when Selangor came strongly for the equalizer in the late hour to make the score tied at 1-1 and thus sent the match into penalty shoot-out.

Prior to the game, the “psychic” in me was telling that the score would be 4-1 or 4-2. But I refused to believe what rings in my head as I felt it was ridiculous for either team to garner big goal margin since on paper, both teams stands 50-50 chance of winning, with only minimal score. What more, I didn’t want to entertain the idea of Selangor was winning. Goodness, I never thought the score I was toying around with on my mind would actually be the results of the penalty shoot-out, instead.

The final results of the penalty shoot-out: Selangor 4, Kelantan 1

It was a tight game, not too pretty or spectacular, though, I personally think Kelantan played better but Selangor had the better luck.

Lady luck somehow smiled on Selangor side.

My morning in Ijok

2009-03-16T11:45:00.006+08:00

This tiny sucker is elusive. He flies in random order and only come to rest, perched on the foliage merely for seconds. After a cup of sweat and dirty pants, I still couldn’t get a decent shot on him. This is the best I could get that I need to crop heavily for my image – less than satisfactory.

Ijok is a constituency in the state of Selangor, some 65km from Kuala Lumpur. From my house to this tiny dreary township of Ijok, it is only some 15km on a straight line, no big deal for me to get there. But it’s a big deal to go there if I don’t really have any apparent purpose.

Of all the places on earth, I went there looking for butterflies to capture. As if butterflies are that scarce that cannot be found elsewhere but Ijok. When I got back home, I saw similar butterfly was happily roaming in my yard.

This is my catch of the day – a splendor. What good is Ijok without her?!!

View Large

This beautiful girl in the picture gave me a nice spread of her wings for my shot.

I have a feeling that it is less fun to go capture butterflies in the Butterfly Park where there are actually plenty of beautiful butterflies with wide varieties of sub-species to shoot at.

The thrill of locating them in the wild and chasing after them is perhaps to me reckoned to be called fun as compared to getting just pictures as pictures of beautiful subjects. I don’t know, maybe I am befuddled between my infatuation and my preference here – just like my ambiguity over blogging or just simply upload image in the flickr. Cool!

All I know, I had so much fun hunting them down next to the nippy cemetery in an isolated part of Ijok, Selangor.

This image is my personal favorite. I favor this based on the merit of photography (that I perceived as one)

I’d suggest you to view LARGE to appreciate it better, or LARGER

You’ll see fine details on her upper body with lucid tresses until the head part and the antennas that make significant contributions to the image character. Blurry upshot at the tips of the wings is to illustrate the proximity of the subject being captured as in a way to suggest a sense of depth. And, please don’t be overlooked; the exquisite adornment on the wings with the electrifying color is no less than interesting either – apart from the smooth bokeh that to me is something to be valued at.

It is worth my while to spend my morning in Ijok with these great captures.

In Memories of Raffie Hussain

2009-02-14T09:55:00.009+08:00

This picture is my last photo of Raffie Hussain. I took this in the office during an interview with a local publishing house, 2 weeks before Aidilfitri last year.

He had already becoming an artist when I was still in high school. He was one time dubbed as Elvis Presley of Kelantan for his singing style. During my absence for studies in overseas, I learned that he was also making name in acting ─ he played in a popular local movie, Azura.

Little did I know in my later years, Raffi Hussain would be my business partner of which it abruptly ended in October 2008 when he collapsed and passed away at his parents' home in Gombak due to heart attack. He was supposed to celebrate his 49th birthday the next day, 15th October.

I was in the middle of Hari Raya Celebration at my wife's work place when I received the news. I took my whole family, rushed to the Selayang Hospital, only to wait for his remain at the mortuary. He was pronounced dead on the arrival.

His movie project on "The Chini: Awaken" came to a halt and had practically die off as well..

May Allah Bless His Soul!

These are Raffie's kids out of five (The youngest was not born yet the time he passed away). It is taken during the family "majlis buka puasa" at our office. I'll do what I can to see these kids grow up.

Istana Jahar, Kota Bharu, Kelantan

2009-02-05T10:33:00.003+08:00

Istana Jahar is a remainder of the great Kelantan Monarchy in the bygone eon. As I learned, this palace was built in 1887 by Sultan Mahmud II for his grandson, Long Kundur. (Note: We hardly have this primeval name around for a person now).

This palace is finely carved out of wood with complex patterns; a conspicuous testimony of fine craftsmanship employed by the people in the state.

It's now been transformed into a museum showcasing Kelantan’s culture. If you have the opportunity to be in this part of the planet, please do visit the place. They also have things on display include photographs, artifacts and other exhibits.

Looking at this magnificent edifice, I couldn’t help but fantasizing me as a king living in it. I could imagine I’d be at the balcony enjoying my tea brewed from the finest tea leaves while watching a cock-fight in the compound, cheering for my favorite rooster to beat the hell out of the opponent rooster.

~

Gunung Senyum.... Here we come!!!

2009-02-03T09:43:00.007+08:00

You can see big smiles on my children’s faces in the photo (Sam – left, Fara – middle and Edrin – right) They had better, as to live up to the name of the place, Gunung Senyum.

The place is located some 160 km from Kuala Lumpur in the state of Pahang. It’ll take you to a sleepy township of Temerloh after a smooth ride on the Karak Highway. From Temerloh to the mountain proper, you’ll enjoy the ride on the trunk roads with the staple view of oil palm plantations all the way. Travelling time from KL is about 2½ hours (2 hours if you’re driving Porsche)

If you care to scale a mountain as an adventure for the whole family members, Gunung Senyum is the right place to be at. It comprises a fairly less challenge climb as the track to go up is readily available. With little boost in stamina, even an elderly grandmother can make it to the peak.

It’s a pity if you’re overweight that could even barely enjoy a climb on a stairway of a 2-storey building. If that’s the case, better off stay in the comfort of your living room.

SMILE!

Fara and her little brother Edrin are impishly making faces for my shot. This is taken at the entrance at the foot of Gunung Senyum.

The mountain does keep her secrets that only meant to be disclosed to the nature lovers who are keen to make realize a rendezvous. If you are one, you’d be delighted to explore the place. Apart from her natural beauty with lush greeneries of the virgin forest, the place embraces many interesting caverns and handsome rock formations.

Later in the day, you’ll head home leaving the grandiose of the mountain behind with respect.

Oh yeah, don’t forget to bring along your smile to the mountain.

Do you have 6 hours 45 minutes of your life to see what the place has got in store for you? That is what reads in the notice prepared by the state authority the approximate time taken to summit and back.

These images, as in any other images of my kids, they will serve as a record of a good time we have had. As it is valuable and precious now, it would be even more in years to come.

One fine day when the kids are no longer under my arms, I’d wake up in the morning; flipping through prints of the images of the past just to feel exactly what I was feeling many years before.

My stopover along the KL - Putrajaya Highway

2009-01-30T13:03:00.002+08:00

I stopped and parked my car at the truck parking lot at the Rest & Recreational area along the KL - Putrajaya Highway for this capture.

The trains of traffics with the headlights beaming and the street lights looked amazing when I was on the top of the hill tolerating the undulating slopes with smooth roller coaster ride minutes before. I thought I would have captured it nicely but what can I say, the view point at the place I stopped at was not as good as what I saw before.

I bet many KLites have not even used this highway yet. It only opened in recent months.

It offers road users a shorter and more direct route to the federal administrative capital Putrajaya, Cyberjaya and the KL International Airport (KLIA), cuts short by 30 minutes to get to the airport from Kuala Lumpur. It is accessible from KL starting at Kg Pandan Interchange.

Of an old man in a sorry state

2009-01-29T15:37:00.007+08:00

The old man of 80-plus in this picture is actually no other than my own flesh and blood. He’s my mom’s cousin. He’s been down with hemiplegic for the past 6 years, helpless and confined to a wheelchair. I knew him as a well-built and strong man when I was little but now he is in a sorry state.

I visited him during my last holidays in the hometown. While talking, he seems lost in his own thought. He spent much of his time pondering – staring point blank moments after anything he rests his eyes upon.

It made me sad. I could almost feel what he was feeling especially when I asked about whether his grown-up children in KL visited him or not. He scrambled for words amidst his grumble and I knowingly nod without a definite answer given.

Note:
Often time when I have image of an old man in hand, I would want to have it treated in Black & White. The image of this old man is no exception. It must be something to do with what entrenched in the back of my mind. Perhaps, I’d automatically associate old man with the past era when the technology of the day had yet to see the arrival of color printing.

Maybe the scars of experience crafted in the face make good exercise for my experimentation with tones. Or maybe black & white finish would give better mood due to his suffering.

Be as it may with the underlying principle, I think it’s cool to have this image treated in such a manner.

God of Prosperity and the winning photo

2009-01-28T11:38:00.001+08:00

This is a picture of a man in God of Prosperity costume showing thumbs up for the photo hanging on the wall. “Ichiban” he said, means, “Very good!” in Chinese.

That photo is actually one of the selected photos exhibited at the Annexe Gallery in Central Market Avenue, Kuala Lumpur (Jan 18th - Feb 1st, 2009). The exhibition is organized by PhotoMalaysia.com with the theme “OUR VANISHING HERITAGE”.

I am proud to tell you that, the photo on the wall is a work of my own personal friend and neighbor, Dr. Zul, here. He deserves to be recognized for this great street photography shot. The photo complements the exhibition theme and it satisfies the panels’ stringent criterion for quality photo to be exhibited.

I went there this morning for the exhibition. I didn’t know they were having function in the area in conjunction with the coming Chinese New Year Celebrations. The Minister of Arts, Culture & Heritage, Dato' Seri Shafei Apdal was the guest of honor. They have lion dance, musics played using traditional musical instruments, a parade of men and women in traditional costumes with photographers from local media on the tail and the God of Prosperity as a mascot.

I just blend in with the photographers and even met my old friend Bazuki, shooting for Reuters.

When the entourage reached the gallery, I looked for the opportunity to have the God of Prosperity to pose for me with Dr. Zul’s picture. He sportingly did what I asked with both his thumbs pointed up.

The God of Prosperity is very often associated with Chinese New Year, as in the new coming year, the Chinese will pray that they can prosper and become richer.

Gong Xi Fa Chai to all my Chinese friends.

Have a nice weekend and HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!

Finally... they tamed the lion

2009-01-28T11:32:00.003+08:00

Seen here is the lion head of the costume for the lion dance lying on the pavement. In a moment, a trained chap will be behind it with help from his buddy ducked behind him to form the lion's body and the hind legs. The lion will then dance to the unassailable yet rhythmic pounding of a drum and cymbals with the agile moves and finesse that would mesmerize the spectators.

I was once standing next to the cymbals player watching the dance, only to have me ringing in the ears for the whole day.

This year, the Chinese celebrate the Year of the Ox in their lunar calendar. In Malaysia, people at all levels would “celebrate” the occasion as much as everyone would also “celebrate" Eid Al-Fitr for Muslims, Deepavali for Hindus and Christmas for Christians. Well, even if it isn’t essentially everyone’s festivity, to the very least everybody here in the country is enjoying the long public holidays.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!

Expensive things always come in a cheap way

2008-07-01T10:37:00.001+08:00

The shells are cheap but the memory is expensive. No big deal if we go buy ‘em somewhere but it is a big deal when we had fun collecting them at the shore.

It happened many months ago. I was at the unlikely place with my children, early in the morning at a small fishing village in a tiny coastal township called Sekinchan, Selangor — collecting these shells.

Bakawali bud and cactus in flawed pot

2008-06-12T14:16:00.012+08:00

Call it mysterious if you like. The flower only blossoms at 12 midnight and lasts for as good as 3 hours. The plant in my yard flowers a few times already but I am yet to witness it blooms before my eyes.

View On Black

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From Wikipedia

It’s known as Epiphyllum oxypetalum scientifically. Epiphyllum oxypetalum or Dutchman's Pipe is a species of cactus and one of the most cultivated species in the genus. It is also referred to as Night blooming Cereus and often confused with species of Selenicereus.

This species was originally described from cultivated material and its true place of origin has never been truly understood. In 1909, C. A. Purpus collected a slightly different type in St. Ana, Orizaba, Mexico. It has carmine red outer petals and the flowers have an unpleasant smell, rather than being fragrant. It was originally named Phyllocactus purpusii, but does probably not deserve any botanical recognition.

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Right! The pot is not perfectly circular. I got it 3-for-RM10 from the reject shop in Merbau Sempak, and not too bad for my cactus.

P/S: I am still having hard time to figure out how the name Merbau Sempak comes about.

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Of governing Pedra Branca and reminiscence of rice field

2008-05-29T12:32:00.019+08:00

Those square shapes are actually paddy plants that been moved from the nursery before it is plucked and planted in rows and lines with 1 or 2 or maybe 3 strands of it in a single cluster. More room for them to grow when spaces are created in between the clusters. The nursery for breeding the plants is in another plot of land. They are taken care of right from the seeds until such time to move them over to another land plot like in the photo above, to be planted and to yield the rice when they mature.

Pedra Branca is better known as Pulau Batu Putih among Malaysians. It is a sad thing when we have lost our dominion over the tiny island to Singapore. A few lessons can be learnt from the incident. On the administrative level, the lesson is, do take care of our soil and never let people establish their footing for you will later loose the ownership.

For civilians like you and I, accept it wholeheartedly when we were once put the trust in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to tackle the dispute and they did their job, delivered the verdict and substantiated well legally.

Whilst it has been hard to accept the fact of loosing Pedra Branca as far as sovereignty and pride are concerned, perhaps it is not too hard on me personally as I still remain as the governor for the island – GABENOR PULAU BATU PUTIH. I am kidding! I know that’s silly but I love saying foolish thing like this. LOL!

Forget about Pedra Branca for a moment. Let me relate to the pictures that grace this entry (as you may later see my digression due to pivotal point of Singapore). These pictures are taken when I brought my family to Tanjung Karang a couple of months back. For those of you who are not aware that Tanjung Karang also does have rice fields, I want to assure you, it does. Their economy is not just confined to sea-related produce alone as the impression one might have. Or you may not even have any idea about it?!

The serenity and tranquility of the rice field brings me back to my childhood days. And not without the kind of special feeling that always comes knocking upon looking at it. On an occasion when I am all alone entertaining my own thoughts at the edge of the field while my eyes would go as far as my eyes can see, mixture of feelings would come without warning that makes my eyes water. I would see my frail body splattered with mud playing in the field. I could hear the echo of a cow mooing in the distance. I’d vividly hear grandpa shooing a school of birds to be away from the field. And I would see cynical smiles and contemptuous smirks from specters for no apparent reasons.

Yet I am there slightly get my pants soiled upon sitting on the grass and come to realization that it happened in the past decades when the giggles of my kids playing nearby overshadows.

I was staying with grandparents as dad passed away since I was small and mom had her own life somewhere. To make matter worst, we were staying with another two cousins under the same roof. Due to some ill twist of fate, my uncle had divorced his Singaporean wife. The wife refused to take the kids along and he was then facing concrete wall in juggling his life in Singapore between career and small kids under his arm. By the way, my uncle studied in Singapore when he was small, staying in there since and even calls Singapore as home until today. See here

Decision was made; sending his small kids under the care of my grandparents would be better idea, at the onus of poor old folks.

There we were, surviving by the day with least allotments to continue living. Somehow we pulled it through despite of the hitch, thanks to the fine nurturing that taught us to be not just tough but also not to be deprived from self-esteem. And it also circumstantially taught us to tell no difference between siblings and cousins.

Now all of us have grown up, became adults, have families and lead quite successful lives on our own standard, but the very lives we had under the care of grandparents is always special to us.

And rice field will always be dearly to me.

It's a classic design of a simple bridge made out of wood that normally would be constructed to connect between the dry land to rice field across the waterway. This sight can be seen everywhere in the area.

This is an essential element to grow rice – a waterway, to irrigate the land. With its presence, not only it is meant for practical reason but it adds serene and beauty to the area too.

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Moronic product of edification

2008-05-22T12:48:00.016+08:00

It captures the imaginations of kids with this icon of a Japanese cartoon series. The irony of it all is, many years ago, it became an issue and debated over in the Parliament. I don't know whether the MP was silly or Doraemon was too influencial until it makes a debut in the Parliament.

I was once wondered why kids like to watch cartoons!? It took me long before I got the answer, that not until I stumbled upon an article about it in the local dailies.

As kids do not possess the complexity in thinking, simple by nature; they would prefer to see things in simple form. The outward appearance of cartoon characters made kids easy to be acquainted with, perhaps requires less chemical processing in the brain to finally accept it as something they like.

The cartoon character is only drawn with the basic outline to resemble the look as for the eyes, nose, mouth and ears which finally sheathed in the shape of human face. Likewise the basic outlines are applied to resemble animals and objects too.

For kids, that is enough to incarcerate their thoughts and imaginations as those are life characters, impartial to the level of their brain activity.

But we adults, our minds are corrupted, way too sullied to see those simple characters without harboring thoughts of proper skin tones, precise facial expressions with specific facial muscles at work, a degree of grace in movements and all until it becomes less appealing to enjoy those cartoon characters as much as kids do.

In short, we make things complicated. Throughout the years lived, we keep on adding unnecessary paraphernalia in our standard for taste and liking. All the basic outline and figure of things are no longer enticing as we keep on piling the pre-requisites for our penchants.

Onto that, little wonder the real fight between humans is only demonstrated when they are grown-ups and are smart enough to discern between good and bad. The irony is kids fight more often than adults do even at a snap over a cookie. But, due to their simplicity in way of thinking, the inferno settles down as quickly as the outburst and tantrum built up and oblivious over the earlier affray.

Adults can be at their lowest point, worst than kids. Adults even fail to see flag as a flag when they start seeing what colors and design they made up to be.

Sheesh! Kids are better than you!

I was driving around on that Saturday morning looking for good place for breakfast and it brought me to Kg Baru area, a traditional village in the heart of the city of Kuala Lumpur. I stopped over at Dewan Sultan Sulaiman to find out that an open field next to it was filled with school kids from the elementary school nearby.

Coincidently, a busload of kids stops over in that afternoon when I was there at Sultan Abdul Samad Mosque, KLIA

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The mockery of my guts

2008-05-08T13:19:00.011+08:00

It puzzles people when I show this image to them. It is fun to see their foreheads wrinkle, as much fun as I am photographing it. I name it as Pseudo-Galaxy. Can you guess what this is?

I may be writing and replying in a lot of political issues in prominent blogs in the cyberspace under assumed nicknames but I want to keep the record clean in my personal blog from politics. This is mainly due to realizing that I am not the type of person inclined towards partisan politics but more on quests of understanding the nature of the issue is raised; try to rationalize it and for my own consumption, figuring out the best possible answer to it to resolute community unrests – and on top of it to visualize what would benefit the society.

Throughout the pursuit, I found out that more often than not, issues are just mere blusters and innuendos. They’d blow things out of proportions over the course of justifying what they want to have the way the very issue is projected. They’d shout profanity at each other and blasphemous over others’ prudent. It is hardly can be seen one agrees with what opinionated by the counterpart even though when it principally deserves an agreement for it indisputably is meritoriously spot-on. They won’t easily trade-off. It’s a tough thing for a living soul with a heart like me to comprehend, let alone to swallow – and it is saddened.

Anyway, I don’t want to carry those frustrations, disappointments and disenchantments into this “From the Governor’s Desk” blog. Let it remain as the place for me to entertain myself with the heavenly things that I see in my day-to-day life. Let it remain for me to record the growth chart of my kids and it is for me to see what kind of emotions behind what I had to write when I would later recall. Let it be the place for me to rekindle my past to have me reminded from where I come from and what pasts made me today.

And let it be the place of sojourn from my daily tasks.

And….. You know what? The one I wrote above comes from deep within me despite of my digression when I hit the keyboard without knowing what I want to write.

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I want you to enjoy these pictures.

These are taken during our recent trip on Sunday (4th May 2008) to Kalumpang Resort in Kuala Kubu Baru. I had fun playing in cool water of the stream with my boys Sam and Edrin. Fara and her mom were just contented to just watch us from the distance.

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Growing up by the day

2008-04-26T12:42:00.009+08:00

From left: Edrin, Sam and Fara
This picture is taken at the jetty in Marine Park, Sungai Hj Dorani, Sg Besar, Selangor.

There will be time when I am no longer talk about “birds and bees” with them.

Even now, I am pleasantly surprised with their advanced line of thoughts during bantering time while I'm a decade behind still seeing them as babies.

Nah, they no longer are.

Edrin advances faster than either Fara or Sam when they were now at Edrin's age. He has to cope to the advances of big brother and sister in his daily lives that technically trained him to be ahead of his time.

If you do have kids with only one or two years difference in age, you’d notice the maturity of your older one would either pulled back to the lower age or the younger one excels to be at par with the older one. That is what happens to my kids. It’s ridiculous for Sam to holdup to be in his younger brother’s world but instead, methodically driven on Edrin to propel.

From my observation, when then age gap is far too long for the youngest edition to appear, it works otherwise. The new kid perhaps learn faster in knowing what is what but get pulled back in emotional development. It takes little imagination to comprehend this due to the fact that, members in the family will set a focal point on the little one. He will observe more things around him to learn fast but requires less effort to understand and tackle his own emotions as people around him are there to cushion him up.

I told my wife while watching the TV program “Bersamamu” where the program highlights the sufferings of the less-fortunate people in some corners of the country, that, “Look, their kids are far more independent as compared to the kids in the well-heeled family”

Here comes the assertion of my homespun theory, “the harder you are trained, the tougher you will be”

And… as of now, I am not prepared for a new baby.

They pose for me in the living room under the dim of the lights before I sent them to school for their Maulidur-Rasul celebrations. I'd grab any opportunity to send and pick them, to & from school even though I've already hired a school bus to do the job. To me, it’s a quality time to be with the kids throughout the journey, nonetheless.

Edrin (facing the camera), Sam (in full body suit) and their friends are having good time at the swimming pool in the Clubhouse of our housing estate, Saujana Utama.

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The Singer In Me

2008-04-19T11:44:00.016+08:00

He taught me singing “Hotel California” by the Eagles when were kids which I memorize the lyrics until today. He went on winning the school talent-time with the song whilst I was having hard time revetting my pitch.

I liked the part that says "They stab it with their steely knives.... But they just can't kill the beast" apart from the opening of the song, "On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair.... Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air" And, my head voice will only be out at the chorus line as if I am a good singer, "Welcome to the Hotel California.... Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place).... Such a lovely face". I'd be singing from the top of my lungs.

Smile!!!

The one in the picture above is my good friend. Not just good friend, I can say that he is one of my only handfuls of best friends I have in this world. His name is Zaid. He used to be a rock singer with a band called BELANTARA in late 80’s. He (the band) has made hell of a name in the local music industry at that time.

It started when Zaid was still studying in Pullman, Washington in the USA. The band was formed by students of Washington State University and University of Idaho with Zaid as a vocalist. After jamming sessions in an apartment basement, they start sending demo tape for recording. They got their break when they were called back for recording in Singapore.

He then heads back to the USA to finish his Engineering studies after the recordings were done.

Fast forward, he is now enjoying doing his Sound Engineering work in his own studio in Kota Damansara apart from producing songs for new talents, even nasyid for that matter. Namely, Rabbani is one of them.

I think it is no big deal for me if I want to start off a new career to be a singer. Zaid can always help me out to produce album for me. Or, at this age, am I too late for that? Or simply not much of talents I do possess as a pre-requisite for me to be one?

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Nasi Kerabu

2008-04-12T12:04:00.008+08:00

The car that parked at the roadside belongs to the owner of the "nasi kerabu" stall and I believe it has been in service all these while. The place is a hit among students in the college nearby.

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Among the stalls in Kuala Lumpur selling Kelantan delicacies, the place in the picture above is the best to me. I used to enjoy good versions of it in Kg Baru, Kuala Lumpur, especially the one at the Y-junction close to the 12-storey flat, but they can't beat this one. This one is way better.

"Nasi Kerabu" literally means "salad rice". Kelantan's Nasi Kerabu is a "white rice" or "dyed blue rice" and served with "tumis" gravy with local herbs, leaves and vegetables. The coloring comes from a type of flower, although some sellers use artificial equivalents. Apart from that it is also served with fried fish, keropok, salted egg, "solok lada" (fish fillet and coconut-stuffed chillis), and pickled garlic.

In short, nasi kerabu is indeed yummy.

Don't blame me for having the taste benchmark that way because if you understand why the Javanese descendants in Malaysia would have their mouths water when listening to the word "tempe", then, same goes to me and my nasi kerabu.

And perhaps the same way sushi is to the Japanese.

Javanese <-> Japanese – two different things.

These students are having their packed dinner of nasi kerabu before going back to their residential halls

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Leprosy

2008-04-07T11:15:00.022+08:00

This building is located just a few hundred meters away from the old Sungai Buluh Hospital, which used to house the Malaysian Leprosy Relief Association. Those days the old Sungai Buluh Hospital specializes in the treatment for leprosy that makes it practical for the association to be in the area.

Now, the place will very soon be replaced by the medical faculty of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and the construction works have already started.

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Leprosy (Kusta in BM) is a chronic infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, that’s what I got from wikipedia. Left untreated, leprosy can be progressive, causing permanent damage to the skin, nerves, limbs, and eyes.

The victims of leprosy had to be obscured from mixing with the society at large due to the severity of the disease that known to be contagious and perilous. They were then placed in this area until they fully recovered.

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Do you wonder why I write about this?

Well, I was just thinking about the time when I was little apart from realizing my blog is not been maintained lately, and to have a little something to chatter about.

When I was little there was a man in our place called Pok Ya.

I was kind of perplexed over what my friends say he doesn’t have a hand. I noticed one of his hands was always wrapped in a bandage with plastic bag in the outer layer. I had a weird feeling every time walk past him because of the eccentric tales heard from friends of similar age.

And he was not too familiar to us either because only once in a blue moon we would see him in our village.

When I grew up a little bigger, I then learned that he’s been confined to a place in Kuala Lumpur. And as years went by, only then I drew closer to the fact that; he was apparently under treatment for leprosy in Sungai Buluh Hospital.

The other day I chanced upon seeing the abandoned buildings in Sungai Buluh that used to be a relegate to the community of leprosy sufferers. Now the threat of this fatal disease is no longer prevalence in the country and the place has been deserted all these while with the buildings left to rot.

But then, it will very soon be busy with activities of future medical doctors as the UiTM medical faculty is now being built in the area.

The time when I shot these pictures, Pok Ya’s face came to my mind. I knew he was once roaming in the vicinity.

I felt as if the apparition of Pok Ya was there in the trail.

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Storm In A Cup

2008-03-14T10:33:00.021+08:00

This is the immigration check-point in Wang Kelian, Perlis.

Wang Kelian is a Perlis border town on the Malaysia-Thailand Border. It is one of two border crossings between Malaysia and Thailand in the state of Perlis. The other is Padang Besar. The village across the border from Wang Kelian is Wang Prachan in Satun province, Southern Thailand.

I have been busy for the past one month due to many things need to settle in office apart from some business traveling. The pictures I took that graced this entry would give you an idea.

While majority of people were busy with politics due to the 12th General Election of the country, I made myself busy with other life essential things.

May be the trainings I had gone through or the circle of professional (and technically-trained) friends that I have that makes me care less about politics. It is actually not that I don’t care as a citizen of the country to participate for the betterment of future. I do care. Yes, I do.

Perhaps, the attitude that I carry deep in me that prevails. As such, something like, I’d prefer to call spade a spade. I call it right when it is right and I call it wrong when the notion is clearly stated as wrong. You can’t carry those in politics. You have to streamline yourself and biased with the conduit of your political religion you are embracing with. You have to nod to the philosophies that bear. You have to sacrifice a fair deal of emotions and have to make room for some element of hypocrisy to be in you – may be a tinge of it – whether you are aware or not.

No, not me!

I think I have worked all these while contributing to the nation. And I think I have done in my little way for the integrity of the faith I am in.

May be it is still not enough but nothing can be too ideal in this life.

A kilometer to go... The road is somehow clear from traffics most of the times.

A flag war between political parties decorates the scene days before the election. Malaysia went to the polls on March 8th, 2008.

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Mud Cookies

2008-02-06T13:32:00.000+08:00

I read in the Star a few days ago about people in slum areas of Haiti eat cookies made out of mud in desperate measures to survive. Their economy is in a pretty bad shape. They simply can’t afford even a decent plate of daily rice, let alone to feast on luxury cuisine we call it ordinary in our standard. That’s how poor is poor to some unlucky human beings just like you and me in certain corner of the globe.

Merchants dispatch the dirt to the local market before women would go buy, then process it into mud cookies. They then carry buckets of dirt up ladders to the roof, strain out rocks and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt. They pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun.

The whole family then consumes it just like you and your family having lunch or dinner despite of the form and figure of mud cookies that replicate our Oreo cookies for kids that aptly meant for tea time, if it is at all edible.

Wonder how it tastes like.

One would never have imagined having to eat dirt to continue living, at least not for us in this part of the hemisphere. But the reality is as such for them that instantaneously would give a sane in us a brush of gratitude for being born and live in this land called Malaysia.

In some remote cases we may have heard people are having hard time to feed their families here in our country, but I never came across people starving to death for having to go without food yet or having to nosh on such gross thing.

I came from a less-than-rich family over in east coast of the peninsular but as far as I can remember, foods were never deprived from our daily routines. Without knowing we grew up healthy by way of consuming a lot of vegetables. It was not unusual then when I was tasked by granny to go pluck any vegetables that I like to have in the backyard for our lunch.

We eat a lot of fish too, be it saltwater fish bought from fishmonger on bicycle or freshwater fish we caught in the rice field. The head of that damn “haruan” sure looks like a snake – no wonder in English they call it snakehead fish – but it’s rich with protein.

Meat diet only come every once in a blue moon. Chicken and meat were the super luxurious food that only in certain occasion we get to taste it.

The fun starts as early as chasing the chicken that roams around the yard after identifying it in a coop before. With some paddy in hand as bait, pretending to be nice feeding it, let it enjoy the bite in its rhythmic noise for a while before at lightning speed; grab it with both hands while the heart is pounding fast. Sure it’s a major surprise in the chicken’s life when the rug is pulled underneath. Even bigger surprise when grandpa would have it slaughtered. Grandma would then busy processing it while I’d be busy to nose around. Need not to tussle with my little sister as chicken have got two feet, fried chicken feet, we get one each – our favorite snack before the actual meal.

It’s a heavy contrast to what the Haitians in slum have to eat to continue living even when we put it side by side with our 70’s lifestyle and theirs now in the new millennium – my chicken feet were way better than mud cookies.

Let alone if compared to our live today.

I would see my kids, or anyone’s kids for that matter, the choices of foods are abundance. They have all the luxuries to pick and choose from. Unlike when I was small, whatever served underneath the “saji” right on the “mengkuang” mat, I would eat it with no grudges and enjoyed it, just as much as our kids today are enjoying their burgers and pizzas.

Sam is studying the menu hard before placing order in Pizza Hut recently. It is his call today and he is known to have good palate for food and his choice never have failed us.
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The Oracle

2008-01-30T14:02:00.000+08:00

An awesome display of a minaret of a small mosque basking in the evening light. The place is at the road leading to Meru. From our place in Saujana Utama, we have a back entrance that connects to Puncak Alam. Some 5 km from the entrance, there's a junction to the left where the infamous Mongolian lady, Al-Tantuya was depleted to bits by her assailants last 2 years while the mosque, as the minaret in the pic above, is located some 200 meters on the right turn at the junction.

Do you think there is no plan for this world, this life? God is in control. He assigns our destiny. Our job is to obey the laws set forth by God.

Talking about laws, granny never took it for granted when I was little. She was then very particular on religious matters. She would be nagging endlessly upon discovering my foul play in observing my religious duties.

It was no fun when I had to recite Quran in late afternoon and you can imagine how you would have to control yourself while in the distance you heard the laughter of friends having good time playing. I had to delay my presence joining the group with much pain to endure. Grandpa would notice the less-than-focused in my reciting and I would have to succumb to his stern voice as a warning. It’s not too strange when my eyes were then clouded with tears, and dropped.

I would be on grandma’s tail to “madrasah” together with grandpa every now and then. Despite of my lack of interest, I switched my preference to liking to be at madrasah when I knew I would have opportunity to play with friends.

More often than not, I would be a subject that caught on the old folks’ nerves over my mischief. At times, I would be caught giggling during my prayer when friends like Fadhil or Ariff shoveling an elbow or two. Regardless of who have started, everyone would try to give a return. Shunned! And missed! And it tickles our funny bones – felt as if it was very funny. In the height of controlling the giggle, with a single knock of forehead on the floor during “sujud” that louder than usual, it was enough for three of us to burst.

It didn’t fall below my expectation. Right after the second “salam” when the prayer was over, the very look from grandpa’s eyes in the front row signals trouble. I knew it. Well, Fadhil and Ariff have got their own shares of stares too. Lucky it happened while many people were around. If it was only me, and him, within his reach while he was boiling, it could have been different story altogether.

It happened for reasons when I was ushered by granny for my “Asar” prayer while we were still in the height of our play. I couldn’t understand why; of all the kids of similar age playing, I was the only one have to rush home for my prayer. Many times over, I was in anger, dissatisfied, but had to execute order anyway.

It took time for me to understand all these.

May be due to age I am in now, I would reflect over small things that happened during my formative years and try to bridge my comprehension on how the conspire has worked on me and why, that in the end makes I am who I am today.

That’s just a small piece of me.

Everyone has got his or her own unique story to tell. It somehow is exclusive to the individual that makes you as you.

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In Contemplation

2008-01-18T12:54:00.000+08:00

Sam, Edrin and Fara are in their good mood here. All three of them on their bellies on the floor in the hallway of our home.

At times I'd feel that I am disclosing too much information about my private life in public over the internet in the blog like this. At the same time it brings some kind of satisfaction expressing myself somewhat in anonymity manner, except to some handful of my family members, close friends, neighbours and so forth. How I wish I could personally be in touch with all the readers in my real life.

Whatever it is, I am looking at the lighter side of the thing that the rule of thumb says good things will come to you when you expect good things to come.

Expecting good and beautiful things, I can’t help pondering about what future holds for me in years to come. It sparked ponders in me when yesterday my wife inadvertently had to add another year to her age. It was yet another birthday for her. I thought of writing something in my blog glorifying her birthday like what I did last year. Here

But my hands were full yesterday. I had to attend to something outside of the office premise. I even obliged a friend to attend a talk on CIMB Unit Trusts held in Bronx Room, Berjaya Times Square Hotel in the afternoon. It was amazing to see two beautiful young sisters in their 20’s managing an agency, Platinum Partnership Group, dealing with unit trusts. It in no qualm has made them millionaires with the venture. After all they call themselves “The Amazing Millionaire Sisters”.

Now back to my contemplation. What will it be in 20 years to come? As much as I do love to see my kids growing up before our eyes now, I would also love to see them one day venturing out this world and learn everything about life.

For they have to find reasons to revere what the reality of life can offer.

I could imagine that by then, my wife and I would be longing for our grown-up kids to drop by our house as they have their own lives to run somewhere. They could possible be living somewhere in any corner of the earth. They would have their own sets of problems to settle while we are in the twilight of our living years.

Edrin poses for the camera

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New Year Kick-Off: Tagged!

2008-01-03T10:33:00.000+08:00

Happy New Year!
My thanks to a neighbour in Saujana Utama, KC, for tagging me up. What a nice way to start off blogging in the New Year with an entry like this.

Psyco-Cybernetic is a great work written by Maxwell Maltz, first published in 1960. It has since been improved by his student Bob Sommer with the release of Psyco-Cybernetic 2000. It is one of the books that I like for its sharp and brainy advice that one can practically make use of in day-to-day living.

Maxwell Maltz believed that self-image is the cornerstone of all the changes that take place in a person. If one's self-image is unhealthy, or faulty, all of his or her efforts will end in failure. Whilst Bob Sommer, in his enhanced version has even elevated the principles of it to the “science of imagination”.

Answers for questions in the tag like this, they actually prompted by the grey matter in the mind of a writer. It smolders through a delicate process, deliberated, reflected and imagined and on top of it, we cannot run away from the eventual responds that to still be based upon the blueprint of our mind, in a shadow of our self-image. In the end, if it falls into the hands of connoisseurs, it’d manifest the psychology behind it.

Now, come read what’s concealed in the rear of my psyche with the answers I have to offer.

1. NAME ONE PERSON WHO MADE YOU LAUGH LAST NIGHT.

My son. Sam! He’s good at making sounds, hilarious twist of reverberations that would tickle you up. Last night in the car, on our way back from dinner in Sg Buluh, I asked him to twist around a familiar tune in his squeaky voice and I had good laugh at it.

2. WHAT WERE YOU DOING AT 0800?

I was running down the highway. In any working days, around this hour, you can expect me either on highway or at Jejantas Sungai Buluh, stop over for my breakfast at KAYA Kopitiam. You’d better try the place sometime. Who knows you’d be a rich person the minute you walk out out from there.

3. WHAT WERE YOU DOING 30 MINUTES AGO?

No fun for me to answer based on 30 minutes ago because of the dreary things I was doing, apart from drowning myself in the blogosphere. What about an hour before? I was down there in a shop checking on a padlock that equipped with built-in alarm. Have you ever come across this? When the padlock is shaken or wrong key is used, the alarm would go off. It’s a product from China selling at RM 70.

4. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU IN 2006?

Nothing great happened in 2006. Managed to do what I was supposed to be doing. I wrapped up the year hoping 2007 would be a better year just like the way I closed my 2007 a few days ago with a hope that things will be good for me, wife and kids in 2008. Here

5. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU SAID OUT LOUD?

Hard to trace back because I seldom yell or shout. May be my excitement answering a phone call from a friend who was not in contact for some considerable length of time. I said “Heyyy… Where have you been? Lama tak dengar berita!?”

6. HOW MANY BEVERAGES DID YOU HAVE TODAY?

Up till this point in time, morning, still early in the day, I just had two. One at home, a cup of tea my wife prepared for me and just now almost a bottle of 500ml mineral water.

7. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR HAIRBRUSH?

For a second it makes me think that the one who started this tag is a lady. And yeah, hairbrush is not in my dictionary, comb is, and it’s blue in color.

8. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU PAID FOR?

If the charge for SmartTAG is considered as a payment, must be it when I passed through the toll gate this morning. But if you mean cash in use, well, last night when I filled up gas for my car at Petronas.

9. WHERE WERE YOU LAST NIGHT?

I was at home after a sumptuous dinner at a Thai restaurant. I find solace to be home. My night is far off from any sort of after-the-dark activity.

10. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR FRONT DOOR?

Peach color.

11. WHERE DO YOU KEEP YOUR CHANGE?

In a small pocket inside the pocket of my pant. Do you ladies know that some trousers for men are designed with small pockets inside the pockets?

12. WHAT’S THE WEATHER LIKE TODAY?

A bit gloomy

13. WHAT’S THE BEST ICE-CREAM FLAVOR?

I have to sound a bit conservative here. I do love “aiskrim potong” best. To me that’s what simplicity in enjoying ice cream is all about. I love all those Häagen-Dazs® super premium ice cream, gelato, sorbet and frozen yogurt but “aiskrim potong” is laced with sweet memories to go with.

14. WHAT EXCITES YOU?

I am confused between “what excites me” and “what turns me on”. Oh dear, you want me to let the world knows the wild side of me when it comes to libido or what? Just kidding! Actually, I get excited every time when I am harboring thoughts of making a trip back to my hometown with my kids and family.

15. DO YOU WANT TO CUT YOUR HAIR?

Yes, in a few day’s time.

16. ARE YOU OVER THE AGE OF 25?

If my friend KC says she’s way over the age of 25, I would say I am slightly over… hahahaha! Now comes the question of how slight is slight?

17. DO YOU TALK A LOT?

I’ll bet giving speech to an audience does not count as I can go for hours talking at the podium (conducting trainings & presentations) – that’s speak. Talk – you can say it’s a lot when I do have the right sparring partner on an issue that dearly to me. If not, I’d be as quiet as a mouse.

18. DO YOU WATCH THE O.C.?

What OC?

19. DO YOU KNOW ANYONE NAMED STEVEN?

I know many Stevens. There is one Steven that I know but he doesn’t know me; Steven Spielberg. Silly joke! Well, of all other Stevens that I know, there is one Steven Keong I would like to give tribute here. He is my personal friend from Brinchang, Cameron Highlands and he's heckuva nice man.

20. DO YOU MAKE UP YOUR OWN WORDS?

Not in particular as I’m trained to plain-talk when I need to talk. But I may be using barrage of words often used by others like, “Holy Shoot”, “Holy Cow”, “Alahai…”, “Mama Mummia” and so forth.

21. ARE YOU A JEALOUS PERSON?

I am not a jealous person as what jealous is. But, if a pinch of it as a must in a person, of which it demonstrates responsible and protective nature in you, I’d say yes.

22. NAME A FRIEND WHOSE NAME STARTS WITH THE LETTER 'A'.

Adnan

23. NAME A FRIEND WHOSE NAME STARTS WITH THE LETTER ‘K’.

Karen

24. WHO’S THE FIRST PERSON ON YOUR RECEIVED CALL LIST?

It comes out as * YanG * on my screen – must be my wife.

25. WHAT DOES THE LAST TEXT MESSAGE YOU RECEIVED SAY?

The last one is no fun to share because it says only “OK”. Neither does for the second last, it is even shorter with only “K”. The third last is fine, it says, “Futsal on Sunday at U-One Sport Center USJ 1 at 11 am. A farewell game to our “Footballer of The Year” Mr E.P Yeo before he joins AC Miri at San Sarawak”

26. DO YOU CHEW ON YOUR STRAW?

No. I have better things to chew on.

27. DO YOU HAVE CURLY HAIR?

What do you call that between wavy and curly? You know, like Tom Hank’s. Mine is in that category.

28. WHERE’S THE NEXT PLACE YOU’RE GOING TO?

In the context of day’s work today, I’ll be out to Cyberjaya. In the context of long distance traveling, I may be going to Japan for Tokyo Anime Award Competition 2008 in March.

29. WHO’S THE RUDEST PERSON IN YOUR LIFE?

The rudest person in my life I want to mention here is not rude at all in the eyes of others. It happened when I was little and it was my uncle. Knowing he was my uncle, I then purposely get myself closer to him in a crowd with the hope of him acknowledge me as his nephew. But he turned his face away that until today the very incident is still vivid in my recollection. It hurts me deep. I was only a kid, had no slightest idea on what the bickering in the family had been.

30. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?

I took chicken sausages for my breakfast at home. But it was only 2 or 3 pieces, feel a bit hungry. I am now opting for an early lunch.

31. WILL YOU GET MARRIED IN THE FUTURE?

Let me do my mathematics for a while. I am married and now the question is about getting married!? Perhaps the question is meant for non-married person?! I don’t think it is a hint on polygamous issue in the question. And it triggers in my mind that the person who started this tag is not just a lady but single too.

32. WHAT’S THE BEST MOVIE YOU’VE SEEN IN THE PAST 2 WEEKS?

If in the past 2 weeks I hardly watched any movies. My movies had been all real-life drama & play with my kids on the centre-stage or graced my widescreen while they were concluding the last precious minutes of their school holidays.

34. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU DID THE DISHES?

It was the night before yesterday after my dinner at home. I’d do it every time after a meal for my own plate.

35. ARE YOU CURRENTLY DEPRESSED?

No

36. DID YOU CRY TODAY?

No

37. WHY DID YOU ANSWER AND POST THIS?

Because I am honoring the person who tagged me up.

38. TAG 5 PEOPLE WHO WOULD DO THIS SURVEY:

I would love to tag them up but I want to end it in a bad way by breaking the chain. I’d spare those 5 potential people from being tagged and if you are interested to know, they are among the last 30 names that left their comments in my previous entries.

Previous Tag

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Congratulations Fara!

2007-12-27T13:23:00.000+08:00

I was at SMK Saujana Utama this morning. Fara booked my time weeks before to have me going to school for her PMR results.

She just couldn’t hide her anxiety when results were due to be out today. In fact since the day it was announced on TV, the date the results would be out, she had already shown her fretfulness, let alone when it was only less than an hour away this morning.

I was in the couch next to my favourite little fountain in the living room. I observed some strained smirk in her face the time she slouched down the staircase from her room upstairs. I led her to the car. I saw a little tremble when she settled in her seat. It has been an extensive silence throughout. I purposely switched-on her favorite Hot FM radio station but I noticed little attention paid to what’s on air. She covered her face with hands the time I broke the silence asking how she was feeling the moment we were at the road bend overlooking rows of houses in Pristana, some yards away from the school entrance.

I could feel what she was feeling at that moment.

But nothing can beat the angst I had to endure the time I was abiding the due results for my SRP those years (SRP is PMR equivalence of today).

It was very crucial to me. It was like a last roll of dice for me to score flying colors in order to remain schooling in boarding school. Passing exams were not a big deal to me because I was very sure I had no problem with it. The deal was, I had to strike the aggregate 10 or below (those years it was calculated in this manner with the highest possible aggregate of 5). What more, even if you clinched 10 or below, the aggregate for Science (Sains Paduan) and Mathematics cannot exceed the total of 6. Walla Weiii! It had put me in pins and needles. It would be too much a pride for me to swallow if I didn’t make it and got sent back to daily school.

Now back to Fara. I was interested to know what her confidence-level like in her PMR. That was long before the D-Day today. In her gallant, she surmised to make it with 6A’s.

“Why not all A’s, 8A’s?” I disparaged her slightly.
“Not too confident with my BM and Sejarah” she alleged.
“I made a blunder with my karangan and confused with some facts in Sejarah” she added.

Deep down in me, regardless of how many A’s it would be; her confidence was enough to please me. In my stride, straight A’s, all A’s, many A’s, are all overrated. Back in my mind I knew she was having a handle on what have been taught by teachers in the classroom. I summed up; she has already reached a satisfactory standard in the nuance of what learning is all about. That’s imperative to me.

And what is it for her today?

Yes…. This is the moment of truth. It brings to an end to her qualms just as it does to my conjectures. She has got all A’s except "B" for Geography, better than what she has predicted.

Initially, a tinge of dejection could be observed in her gesture, as I supposed some hopes for luck to get straight A’s must’ve conceivably been kept in her clandestine. Anyway, it was enough to overwhelm her up and it fuels up even more with relentless laudatory from her teachers and comrades.

She is a happy young lady that in turn makes me a happy "old" man. She is a joyful daughter that I am a cheerful father.

Congratulations to my girl, Fara!

GAB: Number of A’s does not count. It can only be counted.
Here

Fara is showing her PMR slip
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Paleolithic in Us – Hailed From the Caves

2007-12-19T12:28:00.000+08:00

Only in the recent civilization of the world, mankind started to establish and institutionalize jobs and its specific nature, type and category that people would do for living.

You can be anything today; from technician to engineer, from musician to politician, from kindergarten teacher to university lecturer, from medical assistant to brain surgeon, from ambulance driver to F1 race-car driver, from bicycle repairman to rocket booster specialist, from minyak urut seller to fighter aircraft trader, from GRO to PRO, from storekeeper to company chairman and from housewife to jobless husband.

If folks from pre-civilization era were to wake up from their graves in today’s world, they’d die on their feet due to shock within minutes of their resurrections, if not, chances are they would be sent to psychiatric asylum for failing to grasp the assortments of jobs in today’s contexts.

It does not mean that prior to the modern civilization people did not do work, let alone to suggest that the earlier living humans did not have specific things to do. Those Homo Sapiens, Cro Magnon races or Paleolithic men, as we fondly call them cavemen in our contemporary term, did too have their jobs and worked to bring back dinner to the family in the caves.

I presume that during the cavemen time, the works, tasks and duties were segregated into much simpler form as compared to today’s standard and measure. Probably they might have started off to segregate using gender-based; men would go out hunting and women would stay in caves to raise their young, help gather edible fruits, leaves, nuts and beans in the “orchard” nearby the caves and help roast meats of men’s day catch.

“Phewww… What a bad day! I ain’t catch a single damn boar today…”

“It’s OK honey! We do have some berries I plucked this afternoon”

“Grrrr… May be my club is way too small, need to have bigger, heavier!?”

“Oh no, honey dear! It’s just not your day. Am sure you’ll have a better day tomorrow!”

That could possibly be the exchange of words between a distressed “husband” and a supportive and caring “wife” on one fine evening at the mouth of the cave whilst kids are drowned in their own world playing with their pet tortoise that lucky to be too small for a barbeque.

I have a theory. I think, the initial part of it, both genders would be out of the caves doing similar things until such time they figured out it would be better if men and women would assume different roles. That would probably happen only when they started to see their daily living would run rather smoothly by dividing tasks. They were far cry from female chauvinism and bigotry. It’s just that, nature had taught them to compliment each other to have things in place.

From the initial move of gender-based segregation in tasks and duties that saw the efficacy and efficiency in daily living, they started to get more profound and insightful. Gradually, the idea would be like, let one group focuses on skills in a few things while other groups would tackle other parts of it.

Throughout the course of living – hunting and gathering food for survival, they would then see explicit needs to master on specific skills for the individuals. Hence, works, tasks and duties were beginning to get more complex if not sophisticated, that would see them go deeper in knowledge. They went through stages of developments and evolutions in learning. As their clubs get bigger and heavier, the demands for knowledge get further and farther. As they were busy grinding and sharpening axes and spears in their errands, their knowledge also started to grind and sharpened by the day.

Over the course of time, not only they have perfected the essential skills for them to survive, but striving from one milestone of achievement to another, that in turn, it has done wonder in the civilization of mankind.

Eventually, after millions of years, it makes us living the world as we live today and doing what we do now.

Well, starts from this point onwards, you will see an idiotic or may be preposterous thinking that can only be written for blogs purposes, far removed from the world of intellectual sense.

(This is the beauty when you have time in hand like I do now)

I just wonder what I would be doing if I had a chance to use time machine to travel back through time to be in the eon of cavemen.

Since I am now in the business world dealing with IT, I wish I would still be dealing with something similar in my Paleolithic time. The way I see it, IT stems from the words information and technology. Cavemen loved to disseminate their thoughts, leaving traces of information by drawing & painting on the walls of the caves with a fair deal of “technology” of their time.

So then, my trade is to prepare you the technological side of it, apart from tools. I would barter-trade for good chunk of meat and fresh berries or may be a cave-girl for me to marry, have kids and live-happily-ever-after. In exchange, I’d provide you nice spots on the cave walls and tools for you to write, paint and draw with. But, since you’ve been my good friends all these while, I’d give you free space on the cave walls for you to draw just like the way the cyberspace today provide you free to blog with. Hahahaha!

As it does in our modern world to connect & communicate using internet or to broadcast & spread our feelings and thoughts through blogs in particular, it’d do the same to your drawings & paintings on cave walls. It will last for millions of years that later the asinine archeologists would meticulously study what you had drawn.

Now tell me, what would you like to be in your Paleolithic time?

GAB: I have a “caveman” friend hailed from Batu Caves.

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The Remembrance: I’ll take it Bold or Smooth

2007-12-17T10:44:00.001+08:00

I'll get MCDonald's to pay me for this free advertisement

My Air Asia flight AK 6328 Kota Bharu bound was scheduled at 20:20 on Saturday the 15th.

Delayed, yet again.

I didn’t mind a little late because I had nothing to rush for anyway.

Since it was delayed and rescheduled to 21:25 instead, I decided to kill my time at McDonald’s in LCCT.

The taste of the coffee was not that meritoriously great but I am a type that fond of old memories. My "Kopi Cap Kapal Api" prepared by my girl Fara is actually way better, or even I won't trade for anything when it comes to "Kopi Cap Badak" when I was little – hell of a great locally roasted coffee.

The pleasure of entertaining thoughts supercedes the taste. I would reflect over thousands of memories in my every sip of it.

The look of the cup has got its own story to tell.

The lid with bulge of “Decaf” and “Other” and perforated tear-off on it brought back memories of decades old.

The spatula – what can I say, the design never had changed in yonks.

The sugar – creamer – hey, only at McDonald’s my coffee goes with the creamer.

The steamy cloud came out of it led me to the unknown territory of my own ponder.

The smell – refreshing – uplifting – made me forgot about Starbucks for a moment.

My Fillet-O-Fish – it’s not the best combination in the world to go with my coffee, but what the heck.

The influx of recollections came into my head were unrelenting – unremitting – inexorable.

Tens if not hundreds of people were around me – come and go. But, I wasn't deterred by the mass.

Ahhhh… I’m a junkie of old things. Here

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Musing Over Rain, Reminiscing Winter

2007-12-13T10:26:00.000+08:00

Pardon me for having a quick update on my blog. Only last Saturday I had my previous entry posted.

It’s raining in the evening these days, most of the evenings.

I love it.

I don’t know what kind of character would suggest I am for liking rainy days.

Just like those days in the US, I would prefer winter better than any other seasons. May be it’s beautiful in spring and nice colors of leaves in the trees in fall season. You may enjoy some phenomenal view on the changes of colors from day to day, spend your precious minutes watching leaves fall off that unwittingly kills your invaluable hours, as much as you may take pleasure in seeing the vegetations start to blossom in spring season until it creates heavenly scene all over the place.

Or perhaps the carefree of summer too.

But I like it cold.

I liked it to be wrapped in a heavy coat, with a pair of gloves, winter boots, thick sweater and bandana around my neck and also a cap & earmuffs when the temperature drops way below freezing point with ridiculously harsh wind chill factor. But I hated it when I had to use chapstick (a kind of lip gloss for winter use, if not lipstick). It makes me feel like my lips an-inch thick and when it dries up in the chilly winter breeze; it ends up your lips turn whitish like a type of monkey in Barbados. Initially I refused to wear chapstick as I imagined like a lady would but I ended up hurt my lips. You know when it’s exposed to cold winds, your lips will be too dry, you smile, and the surface tension on your lips becomes too great and it cracks. Bloody smile! And blood oozes out, like a Dracula.

For the consumption of people living in temperate countries like us in Malaysia that have never experienced winter in your life, do you know that in winter when it’s cold, it’s really cold? The kind of cold you'd have never imagined in your life. Nah, they would be running around naked for the kind of cold in Genting Highlands.

It could even freeze up the whole river and we would then have fun skating on it. It sometimes freezes up petrol in the gas tank of your car too.

You know, when it’s too cold, you’d feel like your ears are falling off? They say it does but I never came across one. And are you aware of the myth that if you pee in the open when the temperature falls below freezing point, your urine will freeze right up and you can see the spurt of frozen urine arched?! Don’t believe in it, of course it’s a myth.

Another myth is, if you lick up a metal object that exposed in cold, your tongue will stick onto it and when you try to pull it off, it snippets a good deal of the surface of your tongue. Foolish of me, I did try that on a guard rail next to our apartment. And prooven it’s not a myth. I was struggling to take my tongue off. Friends were laughing like hell. And it took me some time to have my tongue healed and even longer time as a subject of ridicule.

What about the story when I started off just now telling about rain? Oh yes, I like it when it rains. Again I am telling you.

It brings me back to the time when I was a kid.

We lived in kampung with poor living condition. When it rains, the ground becomes mushy and muddy. The only way to move around outside the house was to step on mud. Don’t even think of using shoes or sandals. They are of no use.

I remember when we had to brave through marsh of mud of calf-high for some 500 meters before we hit the main road to school. We would then hold our shoes in hands with funny looking schoolbags tied on our back. We only had our shoes worn after cleaning our feet at the well next to the wakaf at the main road, the point which did just half of the journey walking to school.

On our way back, just when we started to enjoy the warmth and comfort of our shoes, we had too soon reached the wakaf. Took them off and prepared for a sail through a marshland of mud and sludge yet again to get home. We thought we had cleaned the mud on our legs thoroughly in the morning but sometimes it stays filthy for the whole schooling day just like when we thought we had cleaned them sufficiently when reaching home but occasionally we slept with it till the next morning.

And guess what? The game we played after school sometimes had to deal with mud too. To the very least, we did enjoy sliding in the football field just like a pro stealing a ball from the opponent. Avoiding the squirt of mud into our face already requires half of the skills needed on the field and it perhaps contributes half of the fun for the game.

Scoring goals were only bonus.

That was all due to rain….

It was not too pretty then but it is a sweet thing for me to reminisce today. And we don’t talk about monsoon season towards the end of the year just yet. It’s another nice story altogether for me to relate. They call it flood but I call it big waters that cover the entire village. Love it! I used to write about this a year ago, Here but I’ll illustrate it in another perspective in future.

What makes me today? The rain still is dearly to me.

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You'll grow up anyway, Wada

2007-12-08T11:32:00.000+08:00

No, Wada is not in the picture.... (I snatched the pic from the net to grace my entry)

It is a wake up call when yesterday KC commented this place needs some dusting. Phewww... it piles up an inch. Thank you, neighbour!

My fingers seem heavy to start thumping on my keyboard. Is that the sign of me loosing steam in blogging? It is not so much of loosing interest to write, and KC knows it too well; I’ve been writing quite heavily in our community forum, even thousands after thousands of words were done.

Take a deep breath…and ahhhh!!! Feels better now!

Lately, something inside me is telling, that little girl of 4 years from the house adjacent to mine is not as happy as a child would. She would sometimes display temperamental and her peevishness. Being the only child in the family with a working mother, she’s under the care of an Indonesian maid most of the time in a day. On top of that, since the father is working on the big tanker at the sea, round the globe at the alternate 3-month intervals, I would feel that she is highly strung and missing a father figure in her growing up years.

That little Wada, anyhow, is always charming to me. It is music to my ears when she would greet me the time I came back from office in the evening and I just love to see her giggling while pedaling her cute little bike the time I shoo her up. I would lend my ears almost everyday to listen to what she has to tell me even though most of the times I could hardly connect to what she was trying to relate. All I know when she chuckles with her own story or titters to my respond, I would take it as a good bantering already.

My wife concurs with me, at one point she resembled very much of our now 15-year old Fara when she was little. But not anymore after Wada has grown a bit bigger. She seems to get bigger by the day. I look at it as a reflection of me witnessing Fara who was then growing up before my eyes until one day I was awakened by the fact that she was longer a baby.

Umairah in her 6th year of age, whose house is contiguous to Wada’s, would be there coaching her on many skills like how to sing a tune or two or even how to pile up sands nicely in the yard. Umairah would assume a mentor role in many child plays. But it crumbles and unjust for her role when in one evening I brought out our hamsters for the kids to look at. Despite of the hamsters were kept in the cage, Umairah started jumping and screaming. Wada had her share of scream too, reasonably shoddier than Umairah’s. But not Adam, Umairah’s big brother of 7. He showed his guts to get close and started playing with our lovely hamsters. Only then Umairah started to simmer down and tease. But Wada was obstinate that they were “mice”.

I have a constant worry that, if the maid would ever abscond from her employer again just like what she did last year. It created some kind of mayhem in the neighborhood when she teamed up with the maid who takes care of Adam and Umairah to run off. Absconded was one thing but when small kids were left to mend for themselves, it’s hard to tolerate, then. What both of them did, they put Wada in Adam & Umairah’s house, locked them up and threw the house key in after giving instruction to Adam who was then 6 years old to take care of the two little girls until such time their parents are back from work. So irresponsible of them and it’s absurd too.

Unlike in many similar incidents when the maids flee, this time around the maids’ networking labyrinth was busted and managed to be traced. They were spotted some 60 km away in Puchong before transported back. You could imagine the way they looked when their mission was foiled. It was the most pathetic looking maids begging for mercy that I have ever seen in my entire life. Anyway, due to their trifling fault and yet with the display of some degree of penitent and contrite on their part, the employers still keep them instead of sending back to their home country.

It immensely gave good reasons for the employers to take heed. And hopefully it will not happen again.

And Wada will one day grow up to understand all these.

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The Meaning of Success

2007-11-21T12:51:00.000+08:00

I feel like it to write today after seeing the date of my previous entry just now. It has been ages since I last rambled about the trip back to KL after Raya. I am very sure the regulars are pissed off seeing the same damn old thing every time come in.

I am actually touched by the recent news of a young girl in Nibong Tebal, Penang by the name Subashini who committed suicide after her unsatisfactory results in her UPSR with 4B 1C. Well, is not too bad after all and the least notion in my head to regard it as fail, what more when it is merely an assessment for primary school students.

The first thing came across my mind upon reading the news was the coincidence in the name, my wife’s student also named Subashini, who also committed suicide two years ago. And she was from Penang too. She hung herself with self-woven rope from the ceiling fan in her room at the hostel. It didn’t make the news on the national front as it was protected by the authority to keep the good name of the governmental institution.

Anyway, it’s easy to comprehend when a college-going adult in her 20’s to do such thing for she might have had too much to bear on challenges in her threshold of adulthood. It must be a major slip of thought that never had given her second chance to think.

But it’s hard for me to understand when a 12-year old kid would have had guts to act out something like that.

The only thing that lingered in my mind is something has terribly gone wrong in our education system if not the life value itself. We are pushing them too much, aren’t we?

To me, kids would never have thought of committing suicide if they are allowed to grow at their own pace and achieving what they would achieve in their performances and let them choose the means for them to grow up (and of course parental guidance never out of sight). Let them live the life of children and thus to love life will be second nature to them.

At that tender age, they still have no idea on the benchmark of any target-setting and oblivious to what failing and succeeding are. What can we expect? They are only kids that are very dependent on adults and the systems adopted by the society. They would only be such if it is systematically in their surrounding pressuring them to be at what designated them to be. That in turn, failing to reach the mark would mean to them, they are of no value to face the world and live.

When the time they needed such encouragements and motivations to absorb what they comprehend as failure and deeply wounded over what wrapped in their fate, nobody was there to give words of comfort. And it is imperative to note that, a cliché goes like, no such thing is called failure until a time when one stops trying. Being overwhelmed by the thoughts cascading from their kiddy surreal indulgent, they would have had a hunch that, adults are giving them cold shoulders; of which it is as good as adding salt to the wound. And there goes, it makes the news when they execute what they thought it was the only way out.

It’s time for us to reform. It’s time for us to look at educations objectively.

Every parent wants his or her children to do well in educations. No doubt with good results it will be a motivational factor for children to reap another milestone of success in their academic years, but it is still not a guarantee. Poor results do not mean their futures would be bleak and desolate either. The most important fact that every parent has to understand is, not all children are the same. Some are slow learners while others are fast. Some bloom earlier in life while some are having hard time to be out of their buds.

Doing well in school with flying colors is only a bonus. On top of anything, all the children need is only the unconditional love from parents, and it is important for them to not just know they are loved but for them to feel it too.

Let them know, let them feel it. Let them have life.

See HERE

GAB: Uncelebrated successes are equally as bad as condemned failures.

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Of Pos Brook, Lojing and Brinchang

2007-10-25T14:12:00.000+08:00

The Lakehouse Cameron Highlands
Tudor-style boutique resort, The Lakehouse - Cameron Highlands, an exclusive getaway in the natural beauty of the Cameron Highlands.

Heard of Pos Brook? Lojing? I bet many of you hardly have heard the names. Yes, Brinchang perhaps not too strange to the holiday makers because it’s a major part of the renowned Cameron Highlands. Those are the names of places along the road that cut across from Gua Musang, Kelantan to the western side of the Malaysian Peninsular. The names are captivating to me.

On our trip back to our place in Sungai Buluh after Hari Raya, upon reaching Gua Musang, I decided to take a route through Cameron Highlands instead of our usual route Kuala Lipis – Raub – Bentong – KL.

It was a different experience altogether. All of us love the mountainous scenery that became a staple background throughout the journey. Unlike Fara and Edrin, my son Sam had showed the least excitement seeing the views for he was more interested to doze off in the back seat. But that didn’t stop me to bug him, asking him to be alert over beautiful landscapes that complete with the vast greeneries of the jungles that turn into bluish tones of mountain range in the distance just like a drawing, goes as far as your eyes can see, and the grandiose of rocks and boulders, the fog-covered peaks and the splendid formations of clouds in the milieu.

The road condition was good or rather very good as compared to the usual route despite of having to tolerate the hilly terrain in a pleasant roller-coaster ride, up and down to my proclivity and penchant. Less traffic that sometimes made me thinking we were the only road-users of the day was a plus point too.

My basic nature is a reclusive type despite of my daily chores of meeting many people. Living up to the attribute, while driving alone with the family, seeing what I was seeing, entertaining my own thoughts that sometimes drowned me in paradise and having not found any living soul or settlement areas in that region, was simply blissful – that made me cheery and chirpy. May be it was nice too when every once in a while stumbled upon small makeshift huts of the indigenous Orang Asli down the slopes – that brought me into thinking they were enjoying their lives better as compared to us for being shoved into the rat race in the concrete jungle – and it created a kind of whimsical fusion of envy and gratitude in me. Above anything, in clandestine, I capitalized it fully to fuel up my spiritual vitality. And had my soul filled and my heart sang.

It was not complete for us if we did not stop at Cameron Highlands. Of which we did. At one particular junction from the main road leading to Simpang Pulai before joining PLUS Highway, I decided to detour to Brinchang. After all it was only slightly more than 20 km away that made the round trip from where we started to detour of some 50 km. Winding roads and the uphill climb was not the issue when you know it too well your family would enjoy it.

True enough, it served as a good transition point from the serenity and tranquility of our kampung during Hari Raya to a cool place with fresh air that graced with splendid landscapes from the tea plantations and the undulating slopes, beautiful flowers and fresh vegetables – are all worth our while – before we head back to run our routine in the city.

It has been a wonderful journey, to say the least.

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Late Ramadhan Ramble

2007-10-08T14:30:00.000+08:00

Bazaar Ramadhan in our place, Saujana Utama (Courtesy: SUDOTNET)

Only now I realize it’s been a while since I last update my blog. It’s been a month.

Time flies when we enjoy moments of our lives.

(While we are having time of our lives, there are people somewhere live in misery)

I am contemplating of having my tepung pelita and akok for my iftar and ayam percik and ikan pari bakar to go with for my heavy meal, whilst some poor souls somewhere are only contented if they are spared another breath to continue living. I thought my kids had gone through enough bad evening when I failed to buy their favorite “Roti John” in time for them to break their fast but there are kids out there deprived not just from their meals but also love and care.

Solemn and somber were the order of the days when their mom was away to Cameron Highland attending a course. Reinstating missing of their mother’s cooking in the fasting month like this has not been an easy task for me as a father – Bazaar Ramadhan came to the rescue.

But still, it is beyond compare for a father that have to wait for his missing daughter to come back home like what Jazimin had gone through. The agony of waiting for his Nurin Jazlin to be home safe and sound had ended with a thunderous bang of lightning for him and family.

It moved the nation when the missing Nurin Jazlin was then found sexually assaulted and brutally murdered. I supposed I am not the only person that touched by the incident. It made me weeping every time it flashes in the news. I am also among the millions that now anxiously wait for the break by the authority to nab on the culprit.

What a cruel way to send that little soul to heaven.

On the news front recently; Hui Yi, known as a girl lugging a 9 kg battery pack that resembles a schoolbag to power her mechanical heart, had received a heart from a donor after a year wait. Thought everything went well until it put the medical team in dismay and at the brim of frustrations when Hui Yi’s body rejected the newly-stitched heart. But the fate has it, just when the medical team had to succumb to it, another heart donor came in. It’s a miracle to have it happened very timely and Hui Yi was then saved by the second (heart) donor.

The whole nation overwhelmed with the news.

While the nation still wait for Hui Yi to recuperate from the heart transplant, I have discovered that my own heart starts to beat normally now when Fara had just finished her PMR. It took a toll on me when she had to fight her own battle in the examination hall. I took day off on her first day exams. I sent her off with all my blessings to the exam hall minutes before she had to sit for her first paper, Bahasa Malaysia, Paper 1. Then, I went back home for my sembahyang hajat to wish her well.

Perhaps I was more worried than her throughout the exams. Though, I keep my stand clear; it’s not what the exam results would be for her but it is due to my long shot on what would educations be for her.

And also the long shot on what emotions would bring for her, to know how much I do care as a father.

SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDILFITRI

From GAB (Zack), Anie (wife), Fara, Sam & Edrin

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A Reason to Celebrate

2007-09-09T10:46:00.000+08:00

Sometimes it is fun to find reason to celebrate over something. It may sound foolish to you, but right from the morning when I filled up gas at BHPetrol in Kuang, I told my wife that I was looking forward to witnessing the mileage on the speedometer of my car to read 88,888 km that day. It’s not an everyday thing to see that, you know. A few years ago, my Honda Accord saw the mileage clocked the same number the time I was on my way from Pekan to Rompin, Pahang.

Anyway, the time I passed through Jln Sungei Besi, I kept switching my focus between the ticks of mileage on the speedometer and my driving, perhaps with less attention to the driving. For an apparent purpose, I watched it with a little anxiety. And finally, in between stealing the look with the road ahead…. Bingo!!! It hits the magic number before my eyes as I barely passed the exit to Jln. Kuchai Lama. Fireworks like what were seen in Putrajaya recently blasted in my head. My way of celebrating was just allowing a tinge of bliss and ecstasy to fill me up for a moment, happy. I smiled, feeling some kind of triumphant over nothing. Silly me!

It is funny how our mind works and sometimes it manipulates you for eccentric things too.

And sometimes, a twist only known to the Almighty, something calls for celebrations without reasons too. Perhaps that’s what happened to my wife’s best friend, Zalila. If you read in my three previous-entry, the name Zalila would ring your bell and you’d find what I wrote about her – about her husband passed away.

My wife told me a few days ago, Zalila was somewhat baffled by the recent happening she has got. It has been close to 4 years already since her husband’s passing in late 2003 but then in the past weeks, her husband’s name surfaced again.

The inscrutability started after she received a letter that was addressed to her late husband, Hassan, from a corporate company based in Rawang, Selangor. It is said that Hassan’s name was in the list among the winners for a lucky draw organized by that corporation. Zalila never had known that her late husband entered any competitions or meant to be drawn in any raffles when he was alive. And true enough, he never did. His name just came up in the computerized random selection from the database.

When a gift delivered to you out of the blue, in the name of free thing, anything will do, but when we are talking about a Naza Citra car, it is more than what one is bargaining for. Right, Late Hassan had won a Naza Citra. Actually, it is as easy as nullifying the winning when the winner had died before the line up of winners were drawn and announced but that was not the case for Zalila. Although quashing out the upshot is always a legal option, the auditory of the draw had practiced stringent pronouncement that concludes no changes for the winners. Thus, Zalila as the beneficiary was then entitled for the prize.

It’s not hard to understand why the company is giving out prizes to people as I know it too well on the strategy to play around with the accounting spread sheet in an effort to reduce business tax and make the authority in the Inland Revenue unhappy. Well, that’s another story altogether. The point here is what has been delivered to Zalila, of which she never had thought of before.

A wealth dropped from the sky for her. Since she is now driving her new CamPro Proton Waja, she had suggested accepting cash for the value of the car. And to her surprise, it was agreed by the company to pay her cash instead of delivering a car. For no apparent reason, she is now RM 80,000.00 richer.

Well, I had a good reason to celebrate with my 88,888 number while Zalila celebrated her lesser number from mine with only 80,000 and until now she is having hard time to find good reason for it.

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50 Years of Merdeka - 31 August 2007

2007-09-01T12:47:00.001+08:00

Courtesy: http://www.fotowarung.bazuki.com/

Fifty years is long. It sounds even longer if we put it as half a century. How is it long? Enough to turn a newborn baby into an old man that would retire in years to come - perhaps little time left to live.

That is how long Malaysia has achieved its independence from the British. Gosh, I banged my head on the notion of letting our country to be ruled by foreign forces after we had seen our glory days back in history.

I learned that in my history class. We were such a great nation with plausible civilization. We were admired as much as envied by other great countries of their days. Do you think it’s an easy decision to let your daughter marry a guy across the ocean just for the show of respect? You'll bet it's not. But that’s what had happened when Puteri Hang Li Po was sent as a present to Malacca Sultanate.

The trade relations were something like what we have established today with the countries all over the globe, if not better. The life of people is said to be prosperous and no worries over the fluctuation of the currency that may leave them poorer when they wake up in the morning. Less hassle in dealing when the wired transaction was far off and barter trades were then the order of the day.

They were strong and never-say-die as far as pride and dignity were concerned. To them religion and motherland came first just to be followed by the importance of family and self. I am saddened by the people making fun of the keris wielding warriors of our past as to be analogous to today’s spirit in fighting for the nation. Hey, the spirit remains the same you know.

They were healthy too. Perhaps due to their healthy diet, eating food from those grown and bred in their own backyard. They never had the idea how nice and beautiful the vegetables in our hypermarket today that even maggots are scared to eat them. Earlier generations of those maggots have a history of being poisoned to death after eating young green leaves laced with pesticides.

Parents of yesteryears would peacefully enjoy their sumptuous meals together with their young children at home right on the mat. They would probably puke to death if someone had suggested the idea of eating at the chain restaurants from the west. After all it was so strange for their time to pay for their meals outside of their home.

No surprise if they had to deal with social problem as social problem exists in any era of time. They might have had hard time dealing with their youngsters too. Girls grow up to be women, likewise the boys, grow up to be men. It is only normal when they start to like each other. Those days, from behind the window, she would peek at the hunk passing by her house when he is on his way to silat ring while he had his share behind a bush peeping on her washing clothes at the river. The jungle was thick and wide. Anything could happen.

But nothing compared to the jungle of today. Surprisingly, it is even thicker and wider.

Those are the impressions I have when I have to say what independence means to me. I would look at those years in traces of history in my own perception. We were great then. Why so great? Because not the material success that matters most but what the freewill and autonomy had been. We were deprived from many earthly things but I want to bet a million that I don’t have; nothing better in this world than not being subjected to any form of slavery. Independence. MERDEKA.

We have lost our independence for hundreds of years before we get it back.

In the first place, if knowledge was the priority in our society back then, nobody would be able to outsmart us. And thus, there was no reason for us to dirty our knees kneeling down on our own soil, bowing to the masters that of the foreign decsendant.

The efforts of our forefathers in achieving the independence of the country are among the greatest things, I supposed. They were actually the people who have made corrected the mistakes done by the previous generations.

Now is our turn. We have another set of challenge, and by no means easier. No matter what, we want to make sure independence is here to stay.

From BERITA HARIAN: Teachers, staff and students of Sek Keb Saujana Utama in my area put the efforts to sew up a big flag and have it erected at the school building. Well, my son Edrin must be down there in the crowd.

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Headless Chicken on the Run

2007-08-30T13:57:00.000+08:00

Just like any other Sundays, impromptu plan would always top the chart for me.

I was enjoying my morning drive out of the area to Paya Jaras last Sunday with my wife. The kids were left at home when they prefer not to miss their favourite weekend programs on TV. Breakfast was on the table and they would choose their own time to have it. Unlike lunch or dinner; in weekends, they hardly share similar time for their breakfast if not for the time the whole family is eating out.

Driving through the winding road out of the area is no big deal to me. I can even do it blindfolded (of course without guarantee not to hit the ditch, though). I’d run pass the place at the average of twice a day; one in the morning to office and back home in opposite direction in the evening is another.

Peaceful and easy Sunday! Hardly other cars were seen.

One has no reason to pass through the place until and unless he or she is either a resident there, a visitor or have something to do with someone from the area. The place is rather away from the hustle bustle of the traffic and not in the midway to places like shopping malls, eateries, entertainment spots or well-known rojak stalls.

In another road bend, I saw a damaged car at the roadside. It was clear to me a head-on collision must have had happened the night before. But only that white-colored car was there. Judging from the torment the car has suffered, it must’ve been due to a good impact with the great speed. The very thought that I had, it was highly likely happened to the residents in our area, our neighbor to say the least. But I was clueless.

Come Monday morning, I opened up the community portal from the office. And I read in the newspaper too. HERE. There I saw news about what had happened. The white-colored car that I saw on Sunday belonged to a family of five. Husband and wife died in that accident that left a baby of 9 months in critical condition while their sons of eight and ten escaped with minor injuries.

It shocked me. I never had thought fatal accident would happen at the road leading to our housing area. To me, it was the least expected thing to happen. That’s not the place for drivers to rev up their engines, perhaps the crazy ones may. But it happened.

Little surprise, it was due to the 18-year old driver in Honda Jazz (the black car in the pic) was acting like headless chicken running at the top speed, pushing the machine to the limit. He failed to cleanly pass other cars of which the doubled-lined road does not allow to overtake in the first place, only to meet the oncoming innocent white-colored car at the curve that the occupants with small kids were on the way back from their groceries in Econ-Save.

There go two lives in the blink of an eye that left three young living souls orphaned. Nobody knows whether the three kids would lead a normal life or not, especially the critically injured 9-month old baby, if at all he can make it. The suffering will be harder and longer than our sympathy goes as onlookers.

Life is too short and the headless chicken is too dumb.

Pictures: Courtesy of SUDOTNET

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My Beautiful Morning

2007-08-11T12:07:00.000+08:00

Nice condominium in Taman Melati, KL

The food was not bad. The taste was not strange to my palate. Perhaps it has developed for the taste benchmark long ago, ever since I was a kid.

I had my nasi kerabu in the morning yesterday. Too much of budu that makes it a bit too salty, and funny, only now I realize it was. I finished it up anyway. It must be good since I didn’t say a word about it while eating.

Or may be I was engrossed with the company I was having my breakfast with? Until I didn’t care about the taste. Yeah… come to think of it, that might be the reason.

How true. I had my breakfast with two nice bloggers. The place was in Taman Melati, next to the condominium block in the picture above.

Zalila, my wife’s best friend actually is staying a couple of blocks from where we had our breakfast, at Leha’s.

I remembered the day when I visited the ICU in KL Hospital a few years ago. Zalila’s hubby was lying there in the bed. It’s hard to imagine when all sort of tubes and wires attached to his body, arms, hands, nose and mouth. And that eerie sound of the life support device made my heart beats faster.

Being a staff at the hospital, Zalila can always have the best of medical supports available for the husband. All her friends right from the specialists to common medical officers, housemen and down to support staff including nurses were there giving their best hands to safe life of Zalila’s husband.

At the moment when I was adjusting my sterile robe that compulsory to be worn before entering the Intensive Care Unit, a brush of thought came in my head, it could be me in the bed instead of Zalila’s husband. All Zalila’s friends are also my wife’s friends. And if it was me, my wife would do just that to save my life. My wife would then try her best to mobilize all resources to give me the best medical care, just like what Zalila had done.

Datin Asiah, my wife’s immediate superior was there reciting Yaasin when I approached the bed. It was so quiet except for the melancholic verses of Yaasin and the sounds of the machines. And it was cold too. It chickened me out. It brought me to a place that was so strange to me. I became smaller. Just like a grain of sand as compared to the whole universe.

As what’s written by God long before his existence on earth, he passed away minutes after. I did not appear to be crying but deep in me, I was. The kids that had just lost a father, 2 boys and a girl were all of a similar age to my kids. At that point, my heart went to the kids. It crushed me deep inside – thinking of my own kids.

Now Zalila still lives there with her 3 children, not far from the place where I enjoyed my nasi kerabu.

What a good company I had, IDHAM and JOKONTAN

Honest to God, I adore these gentlemen. They are professionals in their work life as much as in their social life. They are among the nicest people I have ever met that know how to make people feel admired, respected and appreciated. Thank you, Id. Thank you, Jo. (It came from my heart while writing this that my eyes watered)

Being me, I always feel so small when I am next to successful people like they are.

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Bola Itu Bulat…!!!

2007-07-25T12:49:00.000+08:00

A talented but unknown designer displays his remorse with his new version of FAM logo. KENASEPAK instead of BOLASEPAK, an injured tiger with grimace look on the face and lost the emblem of braveness and its fearsome lot as the stripes are gone.
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I may be am not the person to carry a Malaysian flag to the stadium, paint my face with the colors of the flag, wear colorful and funny wig on my head and screaming and shouting from the top of my lungs, feverishly timing up my stand for a Mexican wave showing support for the national football team. But, by default as a citizen, I am a supporter.

I share the sentiment with the nation. We are less than amused with the performance of our national football team in the recent AFC Asian Cup 2007. I can feel the frustration and anger of the football fans. I can almost feel the heat on the players and the management team facing the catastrophic outcome of it.

By the way, Americans prefer to call it soccer for football.

When playing football becomes a job, it is not an easy task for players neither is easy on the management and coach. Winning is the utmost aim. But, it is imperative to note that, by nature, the game of football is very liquid.

Why do I say it is very liquid?

Comparatively, we look at the games that require a team to make it happen like American football, hockey, ice hockey, basketball, rugby and baseball, just to name a few. Let me single out American football since it is related in the basic nature of it being played in a large field albeit the rules of the game are totally different, and is the most popular game in North America as it is football for the rest of the world.

The game of American football does have distinctive roles in the team that breaks up into offensive, defensive and even kicking team is in the different line-up too. If the offensive line-up is in the field playing, the defensive team would be resting on the bench drinking Gatorade and having a field day saying “Hi Mom” to the camera, and vice versa. Likewise, only the kicking team is in the field when their turn comes. It is to the point that, the line-ups are never together in the field playing. It lies heavily on the coach to call a play and it is players’ job to execute at their best. In mitigation, quarterback may have some limited autonomy to call a play based upon his judgement reading the opponent’s move in the last minute. And that’s it. As a whole, it is a planned and organized move that put sketches by the coaching team from on paper into actions by players in the field. It’s a chess game if you like.

Whilst for football, it does have distinctive roles for players too but less obvious positions when the game kicks off. When the opponent possesses the ball, the whole team would be on defense and it changes direction when the opponent is defending. Players will be up and down tolerating the changes of ball possession with at times the ball possession may only lasts for a few seconds. Sometimes a player from different position will have to fill up the vacuum created while the responsible player is pursuing towards the ball to capitalize the moment or simply due to less competent. The whole process of positioning, running, tackling, blocking, dribbling, heading, kicking and split-second decisions in filling up spaces makes it very liquid. We know too well midfielders, halfbacks, wingers, strikers and other positions do have specific tasks to do but it is not a strange thing for a fullback to score goals too. In a rare case, it may happen for a goal-keeper to leave the posts and score goals as well.

Football is interesting but tough on the coaching part of it as much as fun but demanding for players to actually play. If we were to figure out conceptually and put it in a mathematical formula to understand how it works, a game of football requires heavier mathematics than its counterpart, American football. Perhaps, if football is Stephen Hawkings and American football is Albert Einstein, so then Stephen Hawking is a cut above when he perfected Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and comes forward to explain about the Black Hole Theory. Awhhh… Pardon me! I shouldn’t speak this kind of language here. But, that’s just to elucidate how complex the thing is.

The bottom line is, in any type of sports for that matter, it’s not easy. And it’s not even easier when it is in a liquid state.

Is it the right question to ask, how to have a winning football team? Well, better off we try not to jump the gun here, as winning is only the end result after going through sheer perseverance.

Before we talk about winning that dealing with the liquid of the game nature in applying the techniques to fill up spaces in the field once the whistle for kick off is blown that the coach and players are then hard at work to push ahead with goal scoring, let us think towards making the whole system right first.

Yes, the issue is too big for dudes like us to debate over. And without doubt, it takes time and money too.

But…

I believe we do have tens of Beckhams in Malaysia and we also have hundreds of Ronaldinhos in all corners of the country. We do have plenty of Ronaldos who turn Mat Rempits on Saturday nights while keeping their day job as dispatch somewhere in the Golden Triangle. It’s a shame to have those Rooneys to mess around with their brooms and mops as janitors in the shopping malls while they are supposed to be busy perfecting their kicking and scoring skills on the field. What a waste when those Van Nistelrooys are busy with their hands in the electronic factories when they are designed to be at their best using their feet. And who said Mokhtar Dahari is dead?

That leads to a question of how to surface those talents. If my theory is right, players with exceptional skills like the stars in Copa America, La Liga or English Premiere League is only by-product of the system. When the whole organization is soundly established with proper and proven way of managing it apart from effective programs in line to cater for the short, medium as well as long term goals, then getting good players is not a big deal anymore. Let the rule of the thumb of quantity makes easy on quality manifests by itself, in a big way. Perhaps by then, players in English Premiere League will be humbled to their knees upon hearing the names of our players. May be Beckham and the likes will be trembling if not weeping in the locker rooms when our team is on the exhibition games tour in Europe. Even when the world talks about World Cup, they talk about us.

My Alma Mater, the old school is one of thirty schools in the country selected by the Ministry of Education to be a Cluster School recently. Students there are not only meant to excel in academic alone. Sports are also given as much emphasis besides other co-curriculum activities. I am attracted to the program suggested to be handled by the Old Students Association in the efforts to make the school shine in the area of football. It is suggested that every year, to organize football tournament for primary schools from all over districts in the state and the excellent players will be marked. So then those preferred kids will go through a program to guide them to do well in their UPSR and the ones with flying colors will be absorbed in for their secondary years. The ones with lesser academic qualification but talented will be open for daily schools that known to have good sports programs to seize. I think the idea is excellent in our own small way.

But in the bigger picture, we are anxious to see the holistic approach by the higher authority. Why not formulate programs for kids to start as early as 6 years old? And have good coordination from one age group to another until they mature at the age of 18. They will then be up for grab by the state or may be the professional setup. It is also advisable to keep politics at bay for once. Let football stays in its true form as what football and sports is. Give room to grow. Let it flourish. Let it prosper. We are not too optimistic to see results in 5 years. We are looking at 10 to 15 years to come to produce world-class players playing for the country. And, nothing is impossible.

Winning or losing is only part of the game. If we win, we want to win with style. If we were to loose, we still don’t want to be out of style.

Our people would say…

“Apa nak buat, bola itu bulat…”

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A Lesson from the Thundering Jet Engine

2007-07-19T10:18:00.000+08:00

Subang Airport was once the busiest airport in the country before the operations were moved to the new world-class airport in KLIA.

At the end of its runaway to the north, there is a residential area called Kg Melayu Subang. It stands as a small township on its own with all the necessary facilities available in the commercial area known as Pekan Subang. During its heyday, it made a good choice for people who are serving with MAS and AIROD to stay there.

My sister who lives in Sepang now used to stay there. It could either be closer to her workplace at the airport or due to marrying a local man there. Or both! When I first came back from overseas, yet to find job, I stayed with her.

Being close to the airport runaway, it is not uncommon for the deafening sounds of airplanes taking off or landing for the residents there, come night or day. During the day, one could clearly see the belly of the airplane with the wings spread like a flying monster sprawling and screaming atop the roof of the house. And they are used to it.

But I am not.

I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to the blend of a scene in my dream with the reverberation from the jetliner taking off in the background, befits the quaver of an earthquake if not a volcanic eruption. The rowdy racket that rattles the glass windows makes me feel like being trapped in a war zone and had nowhere to go. It takes me a few long seconds to get back to my senses. Only to find it hard to continue sleeping even long after the jetliner has gone, perhaps already hit the sky of the Indian Ocean.

I would be there at the bus stop in Pekan Subang, 5-minute walking distance from the house. I would take a ride to Kuala Lumpur in Sri Jaya bus no. 47 at my leisure. Hoodwinked – I would then develop a pastime to wander around like a homeless lad, exploring all nooks and corners of the town with a “good” excuse of acclimatizing myself to the place where I would later work and play.

My own people with my own culture seem a bit strange when you are away for too long. Let alone when you are still young the time you left the country – having no benchmark on living the life in your own homeland – no comparison, no nothing. What more when you spent your life like a “prisoner” in the regimented boarding school before you went abroad. So to speak, the living skill (in your own place) is close to zilch.

I would sit there like a fool adjusting my mind to accept what’s in front of me and learning the life by the day. I would be baffled with some attitudes displayed by people, serves as a point to counter-check my own. I’d be whining over something that I had seen it could and would be done better and more systematic in the foreign country, just to dish up as a truncheon or rather as a baton for my turn to contribute to the society when the opportunity arrived. And to have it changed for better. Easy said than done!

Little wonder the folks in Kg Melayu Subang never had complained over the roar of the engines of the airplanes. Without their realizations, they came to accept as what it is – spellbound in circumstantial. You’d be amused with the answer when they got asked whether there was any airplane taking off, a few minutes after it did. You simply cannot take the answer like, “Tak pasti laaa….” (I’m not sure…), when it did pierce your eardrums minutes before. You know what that means?

Anyway, my sifoo had loudly warned me not to be enchanted by the unruly circumstances, as much as not to be trapped in the complacence of any achievements that have. And a voice from my spiritual guru thundered in my head just as loud – as loud as those jet engines, telling me “Be complacent with what you are destined to have, for it’s the sign of gratitude”

I think I can figure out the meeting point between those two schools of thoughts. Can you?

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What Your Heart Says?

2007-07-10T16:36:00.000+08:00

Now I am back to the old and tired blog of mine.

You know what? Blogging seems easy on the surface but it is actually not so. It demands your focus just like any other jobs do. It takes a heart to keep you going. Oh yes you can always take it for granted on what subject you want to write without thinking what the readers may feel. What the perception of others towards you with your words. But, I prefer to have my feelings to set out in concert with my entry.

And, to say the least, it beats me lately.

My wife commented the other day in the car about my blog that hardly have new entries posted. She said I must be very busy for not finding time to write. I denied if it was only due to time. I have all the time and plenty of stories to tell. It is more than just time and subject matter. Like I said, it is the heart that matters. Only bloggers know it best. Don’t you guys?

Well, “busy” was the keyword that triggers the banter.

It started when I mentioned to her; at the rate she is working now, she’s supposed to earn a salary of at least RM 15,000, RM 20,000 a month. And of course she laughed at my remark when she only make a small fraction of it.

Right! When she has to relentlessly attending courses, trainings, conference & symposium, apart from her desk work and liaison exertion with the government offices, it must be hectic on her. But, what can you expect when your vocation is in the public sector?

The gist from the repartee we had had that I can conclude here is; as long as she enjoys what she is doing, no matter how demanding the tasks are and how tiring for her physically and mentally, it is fine with me. Not just that. I am always in support in any ways possible. For, in the end of the day, I am happy to see her satisfied with what she is doing and back home to be a good mother and wife as she always do.

As for me, when my heart says it’s time for me to blog, I blog.

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It’s about the journey not the destination...

2007-06-14T13:53:00.000+08:00

“We plan not to sleep until the time we are ready to start our journey” Sam was acting as a spokesperson on behalf of them two, Edrin and him, begging me and wife for consents for them to stay awake until such time.

“Why should you?” I tested him up for reasons, acknowledged their excitements for the trip that make them hard to fall asleep.

“We will be very sleepy by then and will have good sleep in the car throughout the journey…” He reasoned up.

“But... nothing compared to sleeping in your own bed, you’d wake up fresh and ready to roll” I said.

By 1:30 am, both of them playfully lined up next to my bed singing a chorus line of a song I can hardly recall its title, mixed with their giggles, in high spirits for being responsible for waking me up.

Close to 2:30 am, we hit the road back to Kelantan. Just when we were about to be out of our place in Saujana Utama, Berlingo from the neighborhood called on my mobile, checking on our whereabouts, thought we were already some hundreds of kilometers away from Sungai Buluh while he was only an hour away to reach his destination in Perak. If it was a competition, it would’ve been an unfair one. He started early and had much closer point to reach whilst my Point B was over on another side of the country and still had to endure some 6 more hours of battle.

We could’ve had started early but I had a funny reason behind it. It was just simply that, by the time we arrived in the morning, it would be just nice for breakfast with choices of nasi belauk, nasi dagang, nasi kerabu and kuehs over in the home state. As a matter of fact, plenty of those are selling in Kuala Lumpur too but nothing beats the feeling of having it there while being encircled with nostalgic settings, hearing proverbial phonetics and seeing clannish faces if not due to the taste altogether.

Fara had all the necessary tidbits and morsels readily bought early that evening the time I had the gas tank filled up to the brink at Petronas gas station in our area. But it was left untouched throughout the journey because time was rather not right to nibble on it, except for the drinks. Don’t talk about the boys. They were fast asleep. As good as the time when we passed the toll gate in Gombak leading to Karak Highway, both of them were already in their forty winks.

Such a pleasant yet uncanny sensation could be felt with the ghostly sight of thick virgin jungle on the sides of the highway. Those years Karak Highway was not as good as it is today. Those days it was only an ethereal darkness that could be seen. More often than not, we had to heave at the tail of fully loaded trucks and trailers crawling uphill – with one truck overtaken just to meet another one up front – and it was endless. Eight-hour journey was a blessing if we could get. Unlike now, it cuts down many hours of traveling time.

With my wife as a “navigator” on my side, it helps me a lot to pass my time driving, sometimes with her “recorded voiceover” that plays a thousand times before warning me over my driving. She in the passenger seat would hit on the brake much earlier and more often than I do, even she’d take the cornering before I actually apply it with my steering wheel. Hehehe… I always tease her on this. Every so often I would ask her to take a nap if necessary but she’s trained not to fall asleep while I am behind the wheel. It is largely due to my robust way of driving during my younger days with some ugly incidents that involved her in the record that in turn created such dread in her.

Sometimes we would just talk over the same topics we used to talk tens of times before – about places we passed through, about our kids, past traveling we had, the experience we had in kampung and so forth, even about our hamsters we left at home. Now and again we’d also laugh at the same jokes we used to laugh at before – occasionally on certain refined and recycled shaggy dog story, it turned out to be more hilarious than it was before.

Certain landscapes and settings of places passed had drifted my mind back to the time traveling to Kelantan when my kids were still babies – a thousand stories to tell. Nothing special about the cut-off boulders to make way for the road but it reminds me of little Sam back then when it fascinated him, even matched up to the like of a chocolate bar in his discernment. It was not pretty when Fara as a baby erroneously threw up in a car but it serves as a beautiful thing to reminisce. It may be sound like a hustle when we would be on the look for the right place to stop to change diapers. But I was always a proud father carrying a baby in my arms to the toilet at the mosque somewhere amidst the jungle. Stopping at the safe area with the hazard lights on at the roadside to prepare baby formula with hot water in the thermos could be less phenomenal as anyone with small babies would do but those images are still vivid in my recollection.

Glancing in the mirror to see my kids sleeping in the backseat made my heart filled. With the kind of cogitation I was entertaining in my head, I could see their entire life in a matter of seconds. They are at where they are now and some years to go before the mirror would disappointingly reflect an empty seat in the rear, but hopefully not with an empty heart – for I would then be proud of raising them up to be humans – to lead their own lives somewhere.

GAB: It is a journey that lays ahead the destination. Any journey we embark on for that matter is irreplaceable. It only happens once. And it is one-off.

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2007-06-08T14:22:00.000+08:00

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In a Dark Dark Wood

2007-05-26T12:48:00.000+08:00

In a dark dark wood,
there was a dark dark path.

And up that dark dark path,
there was a dark dark house.

And in that dark dark house,
there was a dark dark stair.

And up that dark dark stair,
there was a dark dark room.

And in that dark dark room,
there was a dark dark cupboard.

And in that dark dark cupboard,
there was a dark dark box.

And in that dark dark box,
there was a....GHOST.

I am sure all of us have come across this folk tale sometime in our lives. I like the way when it entices our minds into thinking of a big area to start with and it shrinks down to a smaller and smaller place until the nucleus of it, the subject matter, comes alive… there was a GHOST.

Don’t you think there is a similarity in whatever things we are dealing in, we should focus on the big picture of it first before pursuing the directions we set, of which later breeds into the action plans with the breakdowns of activities to work on until the real thing we are aiming for comes out as a result of it?

I think it does.

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Murphy's Law

2007-05-19T13:02:00.000+08:00

Right from the time when I was a student, I wanted to have a business of my own. It was supposed to be a gradual process after acquiring certain knowledge and experience. But it happened sooner than expected; the opportunity to have it came in a surprising manner when I lost my job years ago.

When I mention to people that I came into the business world because I failed to secure a job after the last downfall, the reaction is nonplussed.

It’s true. I lost everything. Well, it was actually not much of everything that I had lost as I accumulated no wealth throughout but the pride was. That was back in Year 2001.

You can imagine when you are used to have a “good life” with a “good pay” and a big car and all of the sudden you are left with nothing. At first, to be at the taxi stand or LRT station to commute felt like the whole world was laughing at me. It’s different when you commute using the public transports out of your own choice while you are having your Porsche, or BMW, or CLS-Class, or even Kancil for that matter parked under the shade somewhere at the station or home. And it’s different for not having a mean of a transport of your own when you choose not to have one but in my case it was necessary for me to have one but I could not afford it.

It damaged my pride. The worst feeling is when I had to sit around not having the regular things that I had before to be dealing with.

But it was not too long before I got back on my feet understanding what I had already understood about the reality of life. I had nothing in life before. Then I had the opportunity to have something. And now, that little something was back to nothing. So what’s the big deal? The only thing was, without realizing it, I had allowed the pride in me to build the wall. I should've put it in the pocket, instead.

To make the story short, I was actually hunting around for a job but The Murphy’s Law worked on me at that time. The time when I was employed, plenty of offers from other corporations wanted to fish me out but when the time I desperately needed it, none was available.

I am quite handy with papers and paper works. I may be am not the best person in the world to conceptualize a business plan but the sketch I worked on while I was alone at home later turned out to be something of a value to some quarters. In fact, what I did was just pouring out my frustrations and capitalizing on my imaginations for the escapism purposes. Little did I know someone would take it seriously.

That’s how I get myself into the business circle.

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Rambling: An Afternoon with My Kids

2007-05-09T12:05:00.000+08:00

Last week on Tuesday…..

Edrin was excited for a swim at a swimming pool at the club house in our area, Saujana Utama Club House, some 200 meters on the straight line from our home, up on the gradient. It has been a while since the last time my boys went there swimming. He hurried with the gears, had the swimwear readily worn underneath his daily wear, a bottle of cold drinks, an empty laundry bag for wet clothes, and towels – packed in a sling bag, shared with Sam’s. Since the excitement was greatly in Edrin, Sam just sat there on the couch finishing off the game on his Nintendo GameBoy. Edrin was seen a bit pissed off when Sam teased him – jokingly threatens not to go if he fails to pack up for him.

“Kalau tak jumpa goggle Sam… Sam tak nak pergi…”
“Hehehe… I am the Boss… Kan Aesh?
(Edrin is called as Aesh by Fara & Sam, originated from his 1st name Farez but my wife and I call on his 2nd name, Edrin)

A glance from the corner of his eyes, tongue-in-cheek, demonstrating his annoyance with Sam and Sam continues laughing.

But Edrin packed up anyway.

“Cepatlah Sammm…” Edrin just couldn’t stand anymore when he was all ready with the bag hanging on his left shoulder.

“OK…OK… Nak siap ni…” Sam walked off from the couch while his eyes still glued on the Gameboy screen in his hands. Swiftly to the room, put on his swimwear before using back the clothes he was wearing on top.

“Kak Ana tu…” The boys call their sister Fara Liyana as Kak Ana. Before Edrin finished his sentence, the sister Fara already acted upon it, acknowledged his agitation.

Fara dashed to have her tudung on, almost bumped into Sam in the hallway, giggling, feeling triumphant in her prod to push Edrin to the edge. Their mom was in her usual self, smirked, with ‘I-am-ready-whenever-you-are’ conduct, lounged in the single-seater, clenching on her purse, timed her move off the seat. She then switched off the little indoor fountain, latched the sliding door and for a second or two gave an admiring look at the curtain of her choice for Hari Raya last year. While I, was at the rock garden leading to the grilled door with the shoelaces already tied up, adjusting my favorite black Levi’s cap, car keys in hand, smiling – amused with the play staged by them.

Edrin had his goggles missing during the last bashing at the river. We stopped over at 7-11 for a new pair. Since not much of choices available, I told Edrin to go without it this time around and promised him a better pair to be bought in SACC Mall, Shah Alam.

So there we were at the club, greeted by an Indian guy, a familiar face in charge of the security around the swimming pool. I am confused whether he is a security guard or life guard. Whatever it is, he’s always there for the club and around the pool. Anyway… You know what? It was 1st of May, Labor Day. Public holiday. The pool was closed.

Phewww! You can imagine the kind of look Edrin had posed.

So then we went to the Equestrian Club instead, right down the slope across the street from the Club House – watching horses in the stables. At least Edrin’s frustration for not being able to swim was compensated a little when he had fun patting and stroking the horses and commenting on the stained teeth of the horses. And I personally started to like what I was seeing up close, amazed with the sturdy build up of a horse. I never had ridden a horse before despite of having all the opportunities when I was abroad. My interest in it perhaps was drowned by my other interest in motor vehicles. I bet it is far different from riding on the back of a bull when I was a young boy for the bull that I hopped on turned nasty, threw me off ugly to the ground that made me think twice to ride on it again.

What so good about the Equestrian Club in our place? It is a place of choice for the King of The Country, YDP Agong for the horseback riding. In any weekend, if our secluded and quiet neighborhood is then busy with motorcade of police patrol cars and motorbikes, or the horses were seen being hauled into the area in the DBKL wagon truck the day before, it is a clear sign that The YDP Agong will be there for the ride.

I told my kids of my intention to buy a horse and rent out a stable there. At least it would liven up a chance for me to brush shoulders with the King. Sam looked skeptical and slightly raised one side of his eyebrows. No chronicle of words from him though. He was more interested to be out of the place fast, grumbling, it was blistering to still have the full-bodied swimwear worn inside. My wife knew it all too well and just sports a smile. Edrin took my words copiously, got his eyes popped out and his jaw dropped.

“Whoaaa…. Best tu Bahhh….!”

But Fara had shrewdly read my tone of voice and all too soon she replied over;

“Ya la tu Bahhh….” with an easily understood rhythm she used, to suggest the other way round.

And Edrin realized it was not true. His words then blended in the snigger.

“Ekk Elehhh…Ingatkan betul-betul le tadi…!”

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To Educate is to be Educated.

2007-05-05T13:29:00.000+08:00

In his tender age, he was sent to Singapore to study. It is not out of the ordinary if it happens today but when it was back in late 1950’s, it is something. What more when it was in a traditional kampong and the folks were generally not having awareness in the importance of educations due to not being educated themselves. But, that is what happened to my uncle when my grandpa decided to send him there, and until now he has made Singapore a place for him to reside, happily with his kids that now already bring joy to him with presence of the grandchildren. He is in Woodlands.

Singapore is not a strange place to me. I grew up not having an attitude to differentiate between Malaysia and Singapore unlike what generally is now in the minds of younger generations. May be when I was small, I knew my uncle was there and thought it was just another place out of the area we were staying in. The blame goes to the politicians (on both sides) to have us separated in early 60’s as two different nations. It worsens with the political agendas come to play in 80’s and 90’s and to this day, that seemingly put the sharing of history and cultures remotely and thus out of place.

I digress.

Ustaz Luqman retired as a school teacher years ago. His last posting was at a boarding school somewhere in the East Coast of the peninsular. He too has a lot of stories to tell about his younger days. He was sent to Indonesia to study. Ustaz Luqman is later known to me as an uncle too when I marry his niece – my wife now. The irony is he went over to Indonesia together with Abang Lazim, my mom’s cousin that also now retired after serving in the Engineering Ground Support Department with Malaysia Airline System – MAS. Until today, his Indonesian wife is still heavily accented with her Java tongue – I know, that’s beside the point.

Considering the poor living state those years in the rural area where they lacked in facilities and opportunities, in my adulthood, the admiration grew in me for what the old folks had done to educate their children. They looked for ways not to have their children deprived from educations. It was not an outlandish thing during my childhood when I heard people had their grown up children study abroad. The popular destinations back then were Egypt and Saudi Arabia, while India was a place of choice too. They worked hard to support their children’s studies though they were literally lived a hard living with merely make ends meet. The word scholarship is only recent.

Started from my time onward, we can be considered lucky. We have a very good education system in the country. I can say it loud and clear because I am the product of the system. Well not too good, but not that bad either. To the very least I can feel that I am contributing my small part to the nation. No doubt the ideal formula for the whole education system is yet to mature relative to what have been achieved in the developed countries like USA and UK, but in many aspects we are not far behind if not better in certain areas. The biggest achievement is perhaps our end product is not a “kiasu”.

And, look at another angle. How many countries in the world give free educations until the age of 17? (Until the age of 19 in some cases) How many countries in the world spend big chunks of their budgets in scholarships for their students for higher learning?

We are one.

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Kids Today

2007-04-26T15:02:00.000+08:00

Thank God the URL to my blog is still valid. And I can still remember the password to my blogger page. Since my last entry, only today I come check my blog, read comments trailed by readers.

Thank you guys! And thanks to the ones who have left no traces too.

I am prone to write long stories because telling stories are always the acme of my purpose. But this time around, I try to be short and sweet.

I have been dealing a lot with the educationists lately and quite naturally this entry has got something to do with children and education then. Well, it tickles my mind over the youngsters of today. The way the education has made them. As far as what learning and knowledge is all about, it comes in abundance. They can be easily tapped through various resources the technology can offer. They are well-informed and smarter in many ways.

But, I personally see something lacking in our future leaders when it comes to moral and ethics. We were just a havoc like them too when we were young but I remember there were still boundaries we observed.

I am from the old school where teachers were dedicated to make us humans and we kids looked up on them. Whilst today, teachers are perhaps treated by our youngsters just like facilitators if not dissidents.

It’s not fair to say teachers today are of a lesser quality as they are now better educated and equipped as compared to the teachers those days. And it’s not substantiated well statistically either when we can see many achievements in moral values in the country are realized by the brains of later and new generations through a well-structured approaches. Neither technology can be blamed for creating a new landscape of mentality since technology is only a tool to help achieve the educational objectives.

So then, what is?

Albert Einstein said,

“Not everything that counts, can be counted and not everything that can be counted, counts”

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Juggling Between Our Needs and Wants

2007-04-14T13:02:00.000+08:00

On Monday, Apr 16, I will be attending a conference at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. It will last for 4 days until Thursday. On Friday, again I won’t be able to have my free time in office. By the look of it, for the whole week next week I will be away from internet and my intention to catch up with blogging community will be at bay.

While thinking about the schedule that gets tighter week after week, for a moment it came flashing in my mind with questions like, what exactly am I running after in this life? Am I not having enough with what I have right now? Am I in the right course in selecting priorities for my day-to-day life? What about for the life as a whole? Am I that grateful with all that God has destined for me? Do I pay back enough for what God has given me in a form of my ibadat?

At once the thought of Marslow Theory I used to learn some decades ago also came playing in my mind. I am particularly interested in the bottom most needs for humans – physiological needs – as simple as needs to eat to continue living.

Marslow Theory or not, the words from my religious guru rings in my head until I almost see in the manner it was spoken. Of course it was in Malay language and it literally means, “We are sent by God to live life on earth nothing other than to submit to Him in total. But God has encased us in a physical body. Physical body needs food to survive. Hence, the food that gives the livelihood to the physical body is just merely to enable us to submit to Him”.

On the same note, imagine if we were to be created without the need of foods. We can remain idle just like a box in a store room for decades and yet still alive. Don’t talk about using toilets since you have nothing to purge. We can just enjoy looking at the sky witnessing the changes of the day and night for months if we wish. We can just remain sleeping for years. Why should we bother to trouble ourselves with all those earthly things when we could even survive without moving a finger? One thing certain, there will never be any progress takes place for mankind.

The irony is, being humans; nothing will ever satisfy us because we are created to be such. While drowning in a swimming pool, it is absurd if you are thinking of having a big bungalow and a luxury car, instead of screaming out for help for you to be able to breath. Once breathing is taken for granted, our stomach is constantly demanding to be replenished. Starving person never wants to see a menu to order his food, anything will do. But once the food is regularly delivered until we don’t have to think much of it, don’t you think it’s time to consider where to put up a night? Where the place is provides better shade from the sunlight, better protection from the rain? Having all those, so then you’d say, “Hey, I am human too; I think I am in love…”

Well, well, well, I tell you what, it goes on and on until we don’t know where is the point for us to stop. As a matter of fact, on the other hand, stopping or not is out of question here. The only concern is whether we understand or not what grateful is all about – at any point of life while having what we have or wanting what we don't have. The answer will only be unveiled if we can really understand the deeper meaning of “grateful”, far beyond the meaning of the word can offer.

Let's pray to God for the verse below to inspire us upon something:

Al-A'raf (The Heights)

وَلَقَدْ مَكَّنَّاكُمْ فِي الأَرْضِ وَجَعَلْنَا لَكُمْ فِيهَا مَعَايِشَ قَلِيلاً مَّا تَشْكُرُونَ
(7:10)

YEA, INDEED, [O men,] We have given you a [bountiful] place on earth, and appointed thereon means of livelihood for you: [yet] how seldom are you grateful!

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Adrenaline Rush

2007-04-09T10:47:00.000+08:00

It must be due to age. The more numbers you add to your age, the more careful you are in doing things. Getting wiser is a good explanation to it or rather can serve as the best excuse for the deterioration in your physiological capacity and physical ability – that unknowingly make you live in the state of denial.

If I was born into the Ringling Brothers family, the world’s renowned circus entity, chances are I would have been either a trapeze, flying like a Superman under a big tent or a tightrope walker, balancing on the high-wire, and less likely for me to head the Clown Department though. If I was born into a stunt family of the Leavitts, more likely I would be a stunt man for a movie in Hollywood, with me behind the wheel pressing the gas pedal down to the floor and more than delighted to flip the car, tossed into the air before it comes down crashing and burst into a ball of fire. And if I was born as a son of the late Alton Senna, the legendary F1 driver who had died in a crash, it requires no stretch of imagination to see me as Alton Senna Jr now.

But, on the other hand, I don’t know what I would be if I was in the family of the Snake King, Ali Khan Samsuddin who died of a cobra bite late last year – for I found it treacherous and bloodcurdling – spine-chilling to deal with a serpent. I might then be in contentment as a Carpenter-in-Chief, in command to make boxes for snakes, instead.

Granny knew it all too well when it comes to how bold, intrepid and daring I was when I was a little boy that always left her nerve-wrecked. I couldn’t comprehend why people were hysterical seeing me on the tree top for I was not scared of height. I would even be in airborne leaping from one branch to another like a monkey, at the dizzying height of 3, 4-storey building of a tree with nothing less than fun to me.

Alas, fun or not, that damn branch of the pokok bacang was not in my favor in that afternoon. It snapped when my hands were just inches away to grab hold on another branch that brought me down to the ground to some 20-something feet below. And thus, it was as good as all joints on the right hand side of my body except for the knee, were dislocated. The pain was so unbearable that put me drifted in and out of consciousness. The hardest hit was on the pelvic joint. I tell you, it’s not a good idea for you to dislocate this major ball-and-socket joint. It’s killing you. Don’t try this at home!

Did it stop me from coming back dissipating my energies on more perilous acts after the incident? Well, the word quit or repent was not in my dictionary. I was still full of zip as before, perhaps with better skills.

Telling a wounded but brave warrior to stop fighting a battle and turn effeminate is just like telling a succulent lady with passion for stitchworks to stop stitching after a needle pricks into her finger. They are not deterred.

Likewise for me, it lives on – the trait lingered. Perhaps the zest was only channeled into something else. In no doubt I would be foolish to still meddle around with trees when I got older.

“No hands…! No hands…!” as I tried to conjure up with hands off the handle of the bike. I fell off the crude wooden bridge without guard rail spanning across the swampy waterway. Not too bad to be drenched in the swamp below as the mud had cushioned up my fall but the bike fell off later right onto my head is a different story. Mind you, it was not BMX or Chopper, you know. It was Raleigh. Raleigh was like Harley Davidson for motorbikes, damn bloody big and heavy, strong enough to carry a pregnant cow. Anyway, this incident with some cuts and bruises can still be downplayed and not fit to be blown up in my resume since I have a few major motor vehicle accidents in my late teen and early 20’s.

You can imagine when I started to mess around with motor vehicles – motorbikes and cars after a measure off from bicycles. I had one ugly incident with motorbike as well. But I think this one deserves an entry of its own since I do have a long story to tell about the “tragedy”. In short, since the risk-taking attribute was still streaming in the bloodline, I did many “ridiculous” things in the name of fun – enjoying a kick from the rush of adrenaline.

This is the hardest. It was a head-on collision between my Ford Mustang and a Chevy. It brought me to the Intensive Care Unit which I was practically in the threshold of death. I had to go through surgery due to the massive internal injuries; fortunately my head remained intact. It could be fatal if the medical team did not act fast. Lucky I still live to blog this up. Lucky I did not make news in the media back then in the home country. Perhaps it would if my dead body were then flown back to Malaysia. The centipede-like of an 8-inch permanent scar on my belly serves as a very good reminder and it will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Well, due to age that along the way has taught me lessons together with the tapestry that decorated on my leaves of experiences, I am becoming more careful by the day in doing things with only well-calculated risk taking involved.

Whether of you are a risk taker or not, I think all of us can see within ourselves the changes that have taken places from one phase of our lives to another. We are somewhat more cautious today than 10 years ago in any actions we are taking; be it in conversations, in dealing with people, in making decisions regardless of personal, professional or family matters, perhaps in every area of life. It is essentially reflects the wisdom we are acquiring as we waved goodbye to the years passed.

As for me personally, risky moves, shoddy if you like, were long gone but not until I paid those with heavy prices. The basic trait of a risk-taker is somehow still in me but the question is how is it being channeled to suit the phase of life I am in. Doing what I am doing now, like it or not, risk taking requires a big chunk of it. To certain extent, it becomes pre-requisite to see through things effectively.

The rule of the thumb says, the higher the risk taken, the bigger the reward will be. And at the same time, the higher you go up, the higher the stakes will be and if you were to fall, the harder the impact will be.

In whatever things I am doing now, I pray to God that I don’t have to absorb the impact like the way I absorbed when I fell off from the tree in my childhood days. Or the kind of blow I received upon hitting on the oncoming car.

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Why Blog?

2007-04-03T15:02:00.000+08:00

The picture above is a map of the blogosphere from Matthew Hurst's fascinating Data Mining blog. Here's Matthew's description of the above image:

The dark edges show the reciprocal links (where A has cited B and B has cited A), the lighter edges indicate a-reciprocal links. The larger, denser area of the graph is that part of the blogosphere generally characterised by socio-political discussion (the periphery contains some topical groupings). Above and to the left is that area of the blogosphere concerned with technical discussion and gadgetry.

Funny thing about blogging is there’s a sense of guilt in you when you are not being able to update your blog. You’d feel like disappointing your regular visitors. Similarly, you don’t feel good either for not replying to the comments left by readers. And even to the point that you’d feel it’s not fair for not making reciprocal visits to their blogs. Is it me or I really am sharing the same feeling like other bloggers here? Or is it in any way it suggests me as a concerned blogger that care about the community? hehehe

Lately I really don’t have time to do those. I even had on mind to write something stupid for the “April fool” but I had my hands full. Since I had to miss the date, I have to forget about the idea then.

I involved in networking very heavily in the past weeks. I had to be in the circle of technopreneurs with one meeting after another, from one casual drink to the next. My sense of time has gone haywire when my lunch was at 3:21 pm while I’ve just had my breakfast at 12:58 pm and a couple of dinners past the working hours or may be feeling very hungry once reaching home. Since throughout the day I was on sugar-high, countless of teh tarik and Nescafe were left cold on the tables; perhaps it adds volume to it with the saliva splattered while talking. It then entails “Ais kosong satu!” as a common echo heard in the next meet-ups.

The spectrum of places were like from the nice and soothing voices of the waitresses taking orders at 5-Star hotels to the shouts of a mamak for orders that left ringing in the ears. The deliveries were like from well-controlled deep “intellectual” voice to match up the ambience and the surroundings until almost yelling as to counter the revs from the motorbikes nearby.

Of all the meetings and casual talks we had in the past weeks, there we had to draw off our precious Sunday afternoon for a small meeting with our associate – an associate by the name of Dzof – acting as a consultant for the technical side of our operations. This gentleman can be considered as the lifeline of our organization. Much of the spin-offs in our directions which later we call it as brainchild are originated from him.

Being him as an Oxford-trained mathematician, I can tell that he is very resourceful. And not too much if I label him as a genius. Anyway, during our break at the mamak shop last two Sundays, there was one topic derailed from the main topic we were discussing – about the corruptions in our country. Perhaps the topic took longer than our actual meeting did. Since he is also a columnist on a fortnightly basis with the Star newspaper, it as well inspired him to write about the topic. See here. I am not too sure whether the big story of it had to go through censor board, deemed not fit for print or he chose not to write it in the first place.

And back to not having time to actively blog, I think next time around it’s a good idea if I just link to some write-ups by my personal friends over the net or may be copy & paste on some interesting topics.

But… on second thought… Naahhh…! I may not be prolific but I have a hunch that people would prefer to read something original. If not, why blog?

Well, maybe to write once a week is no big deal to me but to go knock on the doors of other bloggers with bouquets of flowers in hand, it’s kind of hard to do now.

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De Motu Animalium

2007-03-28T09:09:00.000+08:00

One of the things we may have taken for granted in our day-to-day lives is the way we move. The way we utilize our bodily functions for specific tasks. The way we use our hands and feet – the way we make gestures, the way we walk. To certain extent, we may be able to recognize someone of whom is dearly to us walking in the distance or moving in the silhouette. It is somehow a signature of each person through the way he or she moves.

If we were to go a little scientific over the fact, it is very much due to our motor skills, a skill that requires us to utilize our skeletal muscles effectively. Motor skills and motor control depend upon the proper functioning of the brain, skeleton, joints, and nervous system. We may have perfected the skills for the biomechanics of it ever since we first learned in our early childhood. The biomechanics of it was first explained in Aristotle’s book of De Motu Animalium, written some yonks ago, of which he detailed out in the application and derivation of engineering principles to and from biological systems. It further explains the pursuance of physiological difference between imagining performing an action and actually doing it.

In our layman understanding, anything less than perfect in the communique and coordination between the brain, skeletal, joints and nervous system, it will result a clownish and blunderous moves in a person – clumsy that is. And, clumsy persons can sometimes be a subject of ridicule as much as hilarity.

If there is an award for clumsy people, I would nominate my 28-year old nephew, the first-born of my eldest sister, to be a contender. He has got all what it takes to be the clumsiest person on earth. His day is not complete if he did not spill any drinks at the eatery, breaking cups and glasses, twitching forks and spoons sprung across the table, even hurdled to the next customers’ tables, bumping into things or fumbling around, to say the least.

As much annoying as it is hilarious, in many occasions we became the center of attraction at the restaurant when the sound of glass breaks or sudden moves of our chairs avoiding the spilled drinks cascading onto our thighs.

When it happens, I would have hard time to either remain in my straight face or to be round the bend or to laugh. It is not a laughing matter but knowing him, it has been much anticipated thing to occur and even to the point the way he fashions the look on his face the time it happens, it would tickle you. I can bet, even you couldn’t hold your laugh if you were in my place.

At one time, after much struggling for him to keep the glass on the table after spilling his Teh-O-Ais, the glass unfortunately, shattered on the floor. He looked unnerved in his panic to keep the glass from falling off. That alone was enough to tickle you. I wanted to keep straight face. And I did. But, on impulse, he stood right up and in his loud voice perhaps camouflaging his embarrassment, he addressed the owner, “Berapa kena bayar gelas pecah ni?” (How much do I have to pay for the glass?”) It was so timely that it snickered, tickled your funny bones. Lucky I was not gulping the drink at that time, if not, I would have spurted the drinks through the nose. And so then I joined the patrons in another 4, 5 tables to burst in chorus.

He and his epicure wife are very enterprising. During the fasting month, he would lease out a stall selling gourmets and delicacies for buka puasa at Bazaar Ramadhan. It was more of moral support than actually a customer when I visited their stall on that evening. More often than not I’d get it free anyway. Well, it befuddled me when the stall was closed on that evening. I called his mobile when his wife answered and told me the whole freight for a day selling was tipped-off down the tarmac the time when they were setting up for business earlier. Walla wei! No wonder some traces of the mess were still there. It didn’t surprise me but it left me in stitches.

There was one time we were the guests in the house of a respected lady over in Seremban, together with a few others in a group. He was already displaying his true self upon entering the house. Taking off his shoes, he kicked the shoe off his right foot much too vigorous that the shoe flew at random. It was just a matter of inches off-target for the shoe to actually fly into the living room when it hit the wall. That was fine still, since the house owner did not realize it.

We were then ushered for a drink to a table with the glass top in her dining area close to the living room from where we were seated. Orange juice was on the menu that day and they were served in the glasses that placed on the saucers. You know, you had better be careful when picking up the glass with cold drink from the saucer because the saucer may stick to the glass.

Being him, he just picked the glass up without realizing the saucer clinging at the bottom. At the height of slightly more than a foot off the table, the saucer then gave way. It smashed on the glass table top. Of course the glass table top was not easily broken but the saucer was somewhat smashed into pieces. Man! The rest of us had a share of embarrassment but we detracted it off while passing some light jokes for cover.

He was then shifting to another corner of the table while the lady started sponging and cleaning the muddle. He squeezed himself between the chair and the wall and without proper admonition, he screamed out, “Aduhhh…Aduhhh…”

Everyone was astounded, afraid that he could have had stepped on the piece of the broken glass.

He was then leaping with a single leg to a stool close to the kitchen area. He sat on the stool, put his foot up and an object could be seen stuck in it. At closer look, it happened to be a Y-Shape structure of an upper torso of a fish bone. It must have belonged to a big fish considering the size of the bone itself. This time around, we couldn’t hold our laugh anymore. It was actually an accident more than clumsiness and it was not funny for stepping on the fish bone for it could've had happened to anyone since it was lying there on the floor.

What tickled us? It tickled when it was not anyone else but him, that lived up well to his attribute if not to his idiosyncrasy.

The question is, why him? Why? I could’ve had stepped on it and so could others. It only served as the reassurance on his clumsiness even God has played a practical joke on him with the twist of fate not to be in his favor. Or perhaps his bad vibes has invited and intensified the negative forces around him.

GAB: Are you as clumsy as my nephew? Bet you’re not.

Yes, He Crossed the Finish Line First

2007-03-22T14:37:00.000+08:00

Courtesy: Berlingo

It was past midnight. Sam and Edrin were deep asleep in their bed. It was a double bed they were sharing. Months ago we decided to remove their single beds and replaced it with one queen-sized bed to share. Hence, it has been for the reason Edrin refused to sleep alone and left his bed disused all those while. I did try to get him to sleep in his own bed but later found, he kept tossing and turning with the eyes wide open in the dim of the light as to suggest his insecurity to slumber off by himself – he needs his big brother Sam to tag with.

With then a single-sized bed to be shared by the two, it looked jam-packed due to not enough space to support their boisterous moves while sleeping. I witnessed many times they would pitch, topple and tumble each other in their sleep. Every so often Edrin’s foot would be right on Sam’s nose or Sam’s heavy arm would overlay Edrin’s face. At times I’d hear their latent yet strident bawls in the middle of the night skirmishing for space. Occasionally Edrin would curl at the perimeter of the bed, cornered by Sam, confined to a little space while the rest of the bed was left wide and ample. And they might drool on each other.

I was standing at their bedroom door with lights from the family hall bright enough to see them sleeping with the bolster in the middle separated them. At that very moment, the medals hanging next to the bed brought me to the Sports Day in school a few weeks back. It had been a whimsical event for Edrin when he collected gold medals for his 100-meter and 200-meter runs and silver medal for his 4 x 100-meter in Std-4 category.

He was then whining over poor run by the comrade in second leg that made them resorted to silver medal in the 4 x 100m-relay. I remember, I quickly told him it was okay and better off not to reprimand or rather censure on others. I told him, as far as I was concerned he was indisputably a lucid champ for his age group. I teased him; he could even beat the hell out of the guys in Std 6. Consoled, with all smiles, he swiftly told me how he acted after crossing the finish line. He said he was like an athlete seen on TV with a single knee on the turf bowing down catching his breathes while the crowd especially Blue House kids were still in frenzy. And I remember I was perhaps happier than him seeing his pride soars due to his feat.

At another bedroom door in a different house long ago when Edrin was only a year-and-a-half or two, also standing, and just came back from overseas – luggage still in hand. First look at the cute little baby next to his mom sleeping had brought mixed feelings in me. Without precedent, my fatherly instinct was shrouded with some guilty conscious when I thought he grew up so fast in my absence. If I really had to be away for too long and not seeing him for months or a year, it perhaps provide good reason for spotting the difference but it was only a week before.

But then I realized. I was busy going places, complying with my work schedule. I didn’t really spend quality time with him unlike with Fara and Sam when they were babies.

He’d still be sleeping the time I left home before I had to catch my flight departing somewhere. And most of the times when I came back he’d already be asleep. In a hectic season, as good as early in the morning the next day after my arrival, I had to drag my feet back to the airport or hit the highway heading somewhere, north, south, all directions. If not, the work demands in office were just as heavy. I never had driven back home with the sun still in the sky.

Dropped my luggage, I went kneeling down on the floor close to the edge of the bed. I stroked Edrin’s face, hair, arms, hands, fingers and what not. Caressed and cuddled! Kissed! And kissed! Again! And again! And shoo-shoo when he showed sign of waking up. And Anak-ku pacifier came for the rescue.

I shouldn’t have had shed tears and I never wanted to, but that tiny little feeling in me kept developing and multiplying until it finally besieged – overwhelmed. I choked! I couldn’t help but weeping – tears were coming out fast, running down my cheeks. I had missed some beautiful moments seeing him growing up before my eyes. I felt like I was busy for nothing. Yeah, very true, it was all for the betterment of life as a whole that arithmetically would in turn provide happiness I was yearning for. And yet the readily happy thing right under my nose seemed to be overlooked and not well appreciated.

I let my feeling loose while I had all the time with myself – sobbing. It was an emotional moment – very personal – me and my own feeling – in the still of the night.

Up till this day I don’t know whether my wife was awake or not when I was entertaining my thoughts, feelings and emotions that night. Perhaps she wanted me to let it all out without any intrusion. I only woke her up after wiping out my tears. And I was contented to just ask about Edrin’s latest development.

GAB: Your children are babies only once in their lifetime.

It Is A Precarious Life, But He Showed Me Otherwise

2007-03-18T10:19:00.000+08:00

In this precarious livelihood we have, one has to be certain on the next move as not to jeopardize the main objective one is eyeing on, be it in personal or professional life. It becomes especially perceptible when it deals with business as concerned.

Recently we have to revise back our exertions on the prototype of an educational portal. We had on mind the portal would be revolutionary in our education environment in Malaysia and the Ministry of Education was the right place to bump into. We did our homework. We traveled every nook and corner of the precincts. We met all the geeks and nerds. We endured vehement speeches by the smart ones. And not short of being cuffed by the upper hands. We even know which parking lot would provide better shades for our cars at certain hours of the day. Even which building holds cafeteria with a good food for our breaks. And I personally know which receptionists and secretaries are the sexiest.

But, it’s a jungle out there over in Putrajaya.

Initially we thought it would be worthwhile reconnoitering through with the Ministry of Education since we were dealing with the prototype meant for education. But then, there we had it, too thick a wall of a fortress for a credulous to break into. On my bad day, it almost made me think that merit comes last in this part of the hemisphere. Some people may jump right off but I am not that type. I prefer to look hard on our inadequacy and shortcoming rather than fingers do the pointing first. We may have all the ingredients but the way it’s been mixed, may not be to their taste.

It is precarious indeed.

And due to this precarious life, it exemplifies a good move when a faraway Malaysian friend, Idham, has made an unprecedented decision to come back to Kuala Lumpur on last Thursday. He was here for purpose. Lest he wants to make it private, I choose not to write it down specifically on his “investment” thing here but I can see this gentleman has clear objectives in his action. He knows what’s down the road in 10, 20 years to come when he left the country last 2 nights leaving all the documents signed.

I was so pleased he called me when he was on his way to KLIA and at the same time made me feel bad for I had to be in Cyberjaya the whole day attending meetings with MDeC officers and Academia-Industry Dialogue with the Minister of Higher Education at Cyberview Lodge Resort. In fact I had just reached home when Idham called to say goodbye.

Well I don’t feel that bad either. On the day he touched down, arrived, I made a point to see him slightly an hour after he took the train from the airport and spent my time with him in the afternoon (together with Shirley).

I always love to be in the company of people who eloquently demonstrate their spatial-temporal reasoning as much as their excellent overall dexterity. This gentleman fits the bill. And it gave good reason why Idham is at the place where he is at now. When I sat there for our lunch at the cafeteria on the upper deck of the skyscraper overlooking the breathtaking view of the city of Kuala Lumpur, I could actually feel Idham’s spirit was as high as the building itself and beyond.

The energy that vibrates in him made me feel that, life is not that precarious after all. We have to be larger than life.

And it’s all in our minds.

GAB: If you mix around with successful people, it can be a catalyst for you to be on the road to success.

Mr Idham, Pn Azie and Shirley

Crab & Goldfish Tale: A Brawny Claw & A Protuberant Cutie

2007-03-09T11:41:00.000+08:00

Having a birth date on July 15, it falls within the dates of constellation known as Cancer. What’s written in the book of horoscope, one of the traits in Cancerian people is that when they grab hold on something, they would clutch onto it unremittingly even to the extent of loosing their claws if they have to, as of for crabs – the sign used for Cancer zodiac. I may be am the least person to take what horoscope says earnestly, but it evokes some kind of fun when some characters come about to be dearly to what I am hauling.

Once the focal point is laid down over something, I have the ability to detach myself totally from almost anything. And I can be most loyal to my own thoughts and ideas. I can be most-disciplined to the rules I set for myself. That is what happened in the past few days when I had to focus on whacking the bugs in our operations with relentless meetings and discussions with my partners and associates.

In that past few days it exemplifies a fraction of the epitomic on what it says for the Cancerians. I was in fact not on the road living out of briefcase, neither I had no access to the internet nor would it has been too time consuming to at least open up my own blog or surf through the net. I had all the time to do that. But, I made it clear to myself to be single-track minded as not to touch the gratuitous things that’d probably win over my concentrations – not even checking my personal e-mails except the corporate e-mail that I have to deal with everyday. Perhaps by now you get the idea why I keep my working desk clean and empty all the time.

(Psstt… I actually missed you guys!)

Yeah, true, that doesn’t live up much to what loosing-the-claw dare is as mentioned above but what has transpired in the meeting room, Gosh, may be I choose not to elaborate it here but I can assure you, it lives up to that trait very, very well.

Not a familiar sight of me when I slouched on the sofa in my office with the lights dimmed out in the afternoon yesterday. It had been some grueling days with my partners and associates. Just like a sprinter crossing the finish line in his 100-meter dash amidst the deafening wild cheers of the spectators – he has a lot more stories to tell far off from his only 10 seconds of show. And my idea of collapsing myself in an awestruck expression motionless for 10 minutes or so was an illustration of relief when it was all over.

Hey, I even had my way of small celebration with myself to signify my relief and satisfaction with what we have achieved throughout. I went over to Jalan Pasar in Pudu, walked around. I spent hours at the pet shops looking at the fish in the aquariums – mind you that not necessarily made me a new member of Pet Shop Boys in any ways.

Love to see those goldfish wriggling and squirming in an awkward swimming style – so cute. They look glitzy and flamboyant with the accessories and embroideries they are sporting. And their teeny-weenie mouths – alluring. Tapped on the glass, they dodged in haste. For a second it reminded me of the local artiste Adibah Nor. And it as well reminded me of a bunch of chubby schoolchildren that overdosed with KFC in their morning jog for Physical Exercise in school. I smiled. Well, on personal basis, it has been very calming and relaxing to me. Voilà! The fireworks for my little celebration was like having my teh halia for a change at the mamak shop close to Edinburg round-about before I came back to office.

A Gantt Chart of some twenty A3-sized papers was waiting for me to see it through before wrapping up the 1st quarter of the year. The impelling cause in its mainspring is; I being made captain of the ship am looking forward to smooth sailing whilst the Godfather would later love to see the ledger as spotless as it is portly.

GAB: You go watch goldfish. They are nicer than majority of people that you know. Or you go break some claws of steamed crabs. Then you tell me.

IN HIATUS

2007-03-02T09:49:00.000+08:00

The Moment When the Mind of Your Child Is Read

2007-02-26T11:55:00.000+08:00

(Click on the pic)

I doubt if there is more fascinating sentiment than the feeling of self-worthiness when what’s behind the mind of your child is expressed out in his or her writing. A small thing that looks big to me.

Fara, my daughter of 15 years had the short essay written for her English class. In her words – below is the easy-to-read excerpt from the scanned copy above:

Person I Admire

My life is as perfect as it can be for the past fifteen years of my life. My parents have taken a good care of me.
My father is not from a rich family. He comes from a poor family in the Eastcoast of Malaysia. His life when he was a boy was far behind as compared to the life I am having now. He worked hard in his studies until he made to the University in overseas. He wanted to help his family to attain better life.
Due to his hardwork, he is now a successful person. He is a Managing Director of an IT company. He is also good and kind father. He teach me what life is all about. He once said that life is not easy. We have to struggle in life.
He is also give support and advice to me. He wants his children to be the successful person just like him. He always said to me to study hard.
I admire his hardwork till he becomes a successful person. I hope I will be the successful person like my father. I love my father so much!

- Fara Liyana

May be it’s a little overstated about her father especially when she sees me as a successful person that may give the impression to readers as being flush and leading a well-heeled life. Actually, the reality of my life provides an insight into shadowy world far removed from what I am in office or in the inadvertent tango, foxtrot and salsa of my words for blog entry.

Suffice to say, I’m leading a simple life, far cry from glossy-finish as it may be seemed. It could be due to not having the substance to gleam with, but I pray hard to God that I’d be the same person if one day I turn billionaire. Hence, I want to be easy in life as I wish for God to be easy on me in the hereafter.

Well, I don’t blame Fara for seeing what she sees. Successful can be construed in variety of ways. Just like any fathers out there or any parents for that matter, I never showed the downside of me to the kids. Being a father of this world age, I try my best to give an imminent of life as practical as it can be. I try to shift away from the stigma rooted among our forefathers in their advice to their offspring as in the likes of not-to-be-like-me or to-be-better-than-me thingy. Without having to divulge, by way of what the children can see and feel, it can give clear target for them on the yardstick to dart at, and to transcend is only a bonus.

I am beaming with pride in clandestine when she got the message well in understanding life as a tough thing; to struggle is a vital part of it. It makes me feel like my love and care as a father has taken into some degree of achievement, not just mere indulgence as to reinstate what I didn’t get when I was little.

I may be ahead of some of you readers here for already having a teenage daughter while you are still busy changing their diapers and enjoying the very first word of “mama” or “papa” from your babies – or may be watching with pride they take the first giant step to walk, and fumble, and fall, and cry, and a hush in the comfort of your embrace, and try again with your guidance and assurance. Or may be I am a bit behind when some of you are now already missing your grown up kids in college and enjoying calls from them asking about your well-being.

But trust me, whatever age your kids are now at; they are the reflections of us as parents.

Weird Things About Me

2007-02-21T17:49:00.000+08:00

On Saturday, Feb 17, traffic in PLUS was pretty bad and I was caught in it. People were in their Chinese New Year balik-kampung-exodus while I was just on my way home for lunch. I chose to cut through Sg Buluh toll instead of the exit to GUTHRIE Highway miles ahead, but it still took me almost 2 hours to get there from Jalan Duta toll. Sigh! Ordinary traveling time would only take less than 10 minutes. It was a little remorse in me for not taking MRR2 instead.

But then, I realized those vegetations and majestic rocks along the highway were fascinating – so beautiful. I never take closer look at those all these while because I would be running at speed when using highway, as everyone would. When in a situation of bumper-to-bumper for hours, consciously, I started to enjoy the beautiful views that I missed all these years. After all why would I grudge over the traffic condition when I was not in position to change? At the same time it reminds me of possibly I would’ve had missed several beautiful things in life as well due to the fast pace of life we are living in. Thanks to the stand-still traffic for the inspiring moment.

And I had an idea. I started sending text message to friends. Azhar, my old friend from school just know how to tickle me with his reply that makes me look stupid laughing in the driver’s seat by myself. Well of course, it’s not too strange for people now but if you were to be seen laughing by yourself in a car some 20 years back, they might have thought you were out of your mind or something.

I also sent Idham in Jeddah a text message and he was kind enough to reply, even called my mobile (after I reached home). He told me he was on his way home for lunch. Kids were in school and he gave me the idea of “dessert” was in his lunch package.

When I browsed his blog today, it didn’t surprise me with the entry “Lunch….” But it surprised me with his previous entry. – Idham tagged me to write on weird things about me.

Oh boy, I know I may find it hard to write them down because the subject is not dearly to me but rest assured I am a good sport.

And it is proven hard when I keep thumping the backspace on the keyboard, even to the point deleting the whole thing before I got some momentum to go on.

What 6 weird things about me?

1. My working desk in office, nothing on it. No pictures of wife & kids, no clickety-clack of steel balls pendulum, no replica of a horse, no pen holders, nothing. I keep it clean all the time. It helps me more focus on my work. The only thing would mess my desk is when I am working on something. If it only requires 3” x 3” memo pad to write on, only that small piece of paper is granted a permit to be on it.

2. I’d fold and staple nicely the rough papers before throwing them into dust bin. I never crumbled them up. Any small pieces of paper or anything, I’d put them into used envelope, have it stapled before discard. Never a liquid of any form will be in the dust bin. Yanti, the cleaner gave a comment, “Sampah dalam bilik Boss sentiasa rapi, nggak perlu tukar plastiknya!”. Very true! That damn plastic bag has been there since the Japanese left Malaya.

3. I consider myself a helpful person but I’d be the last person to offer help when I know many others rushing to help. Pity the voluptuous lady in her low cut wearing tight skirt having flat tyre in the parking lot.

4. I do enjoy blending in the crowd after having my car parked somewhere. I’d be in my jeans and T-Shirt at the bus stand, standing there, putting up the same expression like other commuters before settling somewhere for my drinks. I was once chauffeured driven together with a bodyguard armed with a revolver when I was on my duty in Jakarta in late 90’s. I asked the driver to drop me in the city and I walked back to hotel by myself after hours pretending to be a local.

5. I was a risk-taker and recognized no threat to my life when I was young. When I was behind the wheel, I’d push the machine to the limit. I won’t stop until I heard tyres screeching and the smell of burnt rubber was so satisfying. Winding road was heaven to me. It was hell of a fun when the adrenaline pumped up with fast pounding of heartbeats and sweating. Now no more! (Anda mampu mengubahnya!)

6. I was a professional speaker / trainer that used to train hundreds of speakers in all aspects of public speaking throughout the Asia Pacific basin. I was complimented by people as an eloquent speaker on the stage but I would be dumbfounded when I have to face a camera. I was once offered for an audition with the local TV station for English section news but the thought of spotlights beaming on me and the big camera in front to swallow me whole, was enough for me to retreat. And it was not my cup of tea anyway.

Yeah...

Well… I have done my part!

I am now quoting what Idham said, “I will carry on the tradition and tag the following unfortunate friends (sorry folks, I have run out of enemies)”: hehehe

Those are....

1. NJ (Love to see the other side of you)
2. Kak Elle (This Singaporean lady is known to be a good sport too)
3. Rina Jordan (Because you're cool)
4. KC (I know Idham has tagged you but I’d love to have you fall in the first 6 in my request)
5. JoKontan (It’s all because of my love to you my man)
6. Mommy Alif (Well, you're not trapped but invited)

I’d love to tag Kopi O but he holds no blog though, hehehe

RULES: People who are tagged should write a blog post of 6 weird things about them as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says 'you are tagged' in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

“The number you dialed….”

2007-02-17T12:12:00.000+08:00

(Thursday: Feb 15, 2007: 3:15 pm)

“I am not too sure whether I have no answer to that or you have a wrong question!!?”

That is what I said when I tried to be a little wise with the caller at the other receiving end. But it didn’t turn out as I thought it would – my words seemed to be taken as challenge to her and made her furious. I was taken aback with slight regret.

“Looook… the question is very simple…” she said with higher tone of voice that I could almost imagine seeing her to start fuming, perhaps jumped off her chair with fist clenched at her waist.

“Why did you send the documents to the branch office instead of straight to the Headquarters?” “You’ve put many people in the hot soup… blaa…blaa… blaa... blaa… blaa…You knowww? Blaa… blaa… blaa… You see?!!!” It was a lengthy blow from her. I found it hard to trip with my words in between over her stormy weather.

From the words “Branch office” and “Headquarters”, I sensed something was not right already. Subsequent words from her made me certain I was caught as the wrong actor in the wrong drama. As far as I could remember, the only documents I sent recently were to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), nothing to do with branch office or headquarters thing. The only place that holds the ministerial office is in Putrajaya, nowhere else. After all, the Ministry Office is not known to me referred to as branch office and if it did, where is the Headquarters?

“Hold on a sec! What documents are you referring to here?” “What branch office… what Headquarters?” I asked her as I tried to align the direction of our sporadic row.

Seconds after articulating my confused state of mind started off with her explanation that elucidated her points, she then retorted in a familiar twang of hers;

“Aiyaaa… Very sorry woo…” It was an apparent gargle in her mouth to lament her blunder.

All in all, the blame went to the wrongly dialed number. Fair share of blame also went to my name Zack was similar to her intended receiver that made it passed through the receptionist and my secretary without hiccup. The accentuated significance was about the documents, very much to what I had on mind to start the roll. May be my speaking voice sounded familiar to her too. And, on top of it if blame is really that essential; a scuttle in her deliverance without proper overture on the subject matter due to her dismay had made perfect coincidence for the howler.

Phewww!!!

I didn’t want to know further what troubled her with the documents wrongly sent but her bash on me made me baffled for a few minutes. The first impression came to mind was my documents sent to MOSTI had created uncalled for turbulence to the officers there. It has brought good jolt in me, afraid that the company’s integrity is at stake over certain issue.

Well, it was just flatulence in a daily routine. It may be looked like pointless incident that fits to be called time waster. But I do not look at it that way. Yeah, may be wasting my time and emotions for a minute but to me, what’s behind; it is coherent to profess one’s muff and error as a part of learning process for parties involved.

Ms. Wong, wherever you are, I am glad you ended up the whole thing with big laugh and thank you for another blooper that added to the shelf of my library of experience.

Of The Thoughts Circling In My Cup of Nescafe

2007-02-14T09:50:00.000+08:00

Every now and then I choose to be by myself having my Nescafe at my favourite joint at the ground floor of the building that holds my office. My timing is almost exact everyday as 10:30 am is the time of my choice. Most of the times I get to sit at my favourite table over at the corner of the restaurant with big round pillar at my back, serves very well as an added strength to back me up, subconsciously. Nice open view overlooking the slope with big condominium blocks on my right across the street, up on the steep incline.

“Biasa Bang?!” A young lady would say and I’d quip with short reply, “Yeah!” or sometimes my nod with little smirk is more than sufficient. That’s the familiar short exchange we’d have when she pre-confirms my drink. Occasionally, I’d be ahead of her, “Biasa!” and she’d smile in return. I can take for granted; the steamy Nescafe will be there for me, in minutes. She wouldn’t ask for any orders for food because she knows, more often than not I was there just for drinks – I’d ask when I need it. But sometimes she would. At one time, with her big smile, she swiftly dashed to my table asking – just to create a cyclone of air when she wants me to smell her new “Sweetheart” perfume she’s using and fishing for compliments from me. Rest assured I am always generous with my words.

Oh by the way, she’s a big fan of Mawi!

It is not just about the young lady at the restaurant but also a woman whose working on the flower plants that covered from below the 4-foot high walkway of the building until some 10 feet to the pavement close to the car park. Over the years, I have been watching her taking care of the plants – fertilizing, watering, cutting, trimming and pruning. Every time I am drowning my distress in my Nescafe, she’d be down there nursing the plants. What attracts me is when I see her works with full of passion and dedication – makes the impression of special bonding exists between her and the plants.

I love seeing people doing their best at what they are doing regardless of what they are. I am annoyed to see someone who demonstrates less interest in what they are doing. Have it ever occurred to you when you’re almost at the brink of your outburst with a waitress at a restaurant showing no interest in her work as if you are there to trouble her as a customer? Any experience with a nurse at the counter with thick and heavy glasses gives an outlandish gape at you when asking for information? Ever came across a security guard behaving like he’s the owner of the building? But I know a lady executive friend who admires a hunky Bangladeshi security guard because of his spitting image of Hrithik Roshan. Heh, that’s beside the point!

Back to this flower-woman, I don’t know how old is she but I have a hunch she looks older than her age. I know she’s from Indonesia when it vibrates well in her speech. Deeper in my thought, I surmised her having a family back in her home country with perhaps children to feed upon. Probably, she’s here with the husband in their efforts to make ends meet, leaving the children behind or she could well be all alone here. I have an easy way to know by asking her but it won’t be fun. After all it doesn’t help me much to record the unnecessary data in my head. The very thing that triggers me is, when the thought of her with her life, having to succumb to the living very likely not to her choice but circumstantially she has to face it. Above all, when she is at it, she is at her best. I do not have any specific benchmark to compare her commitments and dedications in work with mine and but I ask myself; whatever things in my hands now, am I to the standard of what she is demonstrating?

Reminds me of Idris, the guy we hired for decorative concrete work in our lawn. According to the neighbours, the charge was a bit too high but my wife and I agreed it was worth the money spent considering the quality of works delivered. I was even prepared to pay higher than the amount he put the price on.

Some years ago in the company I was at, for the company annual dinner, we in the management purposely wanted to have the lower ranking staff to handle the function. Ridzwan was a store hand in the company. Without much details in instructions, he distinguished himself out, outshined, ahead of other peers, even voluntarily took up the stage as a Master of Ceremony for the function. And he played his guitar and sang to the tune of “Isabella” too. Regardless of whether he was singing or not, he did bloody well with all his wits and charms handling the whole function. Successfully!

I took mental notes on every single thing right from the beginning. A few days after the function, I summoned him to my office. Guess what? I pushed him into training department as a trainee junior executive. He was in tears, happy when someone could see what’s hidden in him. On his way out of my office, I could see the gesture of him wanted to give me a hug – lest not proper, he shook my hand – almost crushed my bones. Regardless of what paper qualification he was having or he was not having, I knew that he could handle the job. After yet a few more rounds of tears battling the unknown new world to him, in 6 good months of probations, he managed to position himself as a full-fledged junior executive.

My Nescafe won’t take the whole day to finish. My Nescafe couldn’t wait for my thoughts to last either.

Time to go!

Ghost! What Ghost?

2007-02-09T11:14:00.000+08:00

They said a monument was erected at that place. A gentleman, neighbour and friend of mine with his screen name Berlingo took trouble to track down the monument at the crash site of Japan Airlines that plummeted to the ground in a botched landing attempt at Subang Airport way back in 1977, on September 27, to be precise. It was reported that 34 out of 79 passengers and crew were perished in the incident. The crash site is situated in Elmina Estate, at the mouth of the gateway to our place, Saujana Utama.

Berlingo’s quest was inspired by a tease in our community forum about ghostly figures & phantoms and strange noises that were reported being seen and heard apart from some other inexplicable occurrences experienced by people. The conscientious head honcho igniting the rag was Kudin. It is believed that due to the people were killed, aptly to scene of carnage in the area, it in some way, our neighbourhood become haunted. This is an account from my neighbour KC in her blog.

I don’t know how far the truth is. As far as I am concerned I still laugh off over the buzz. I even challenged on the possibility of meeting a ghostly figure myself. But then, I am not too sure how I would react if the figure really appears right before me though. I hope I won’t be frozen to death! In jest, I even said wanting to meet up with a phantom of Al-Tantuya, a Mongolian lady of whom was depleted to bits with explosives after being shot dead on her fateful night last year. The ferocity took place some kilometers away from our place. It became big news in the country not only due to the brutality that had been but also when it was convoluted with VIP’s involvement.

CRUMBLED MONUMENT: It proofs that the tragedy has slipped off from people’s minds after 30 years it happened. It serves as a reminder that after some time of our passing, we would well be forgotten also.

Courtesy: Berlingo

OVERLOOKING THE HIGHWAY: Nobody knew the site would then be as it is now and I never thought of staying in a place I call home not far from it.

Courtesy: Berlingo

Speaking of haunted and ghosts thing, when I was a boy of 11 years, it was said that Wak Lah, a bomoh in our area, was in possession of a skull of a man from Thailand who was hacked to death and decapitated. The skull was kept in a huge ceramic vase (tempayan) under his house wrapped in layers of yellow cloths. The tempayan itself looked scary enough with the moss covered the outer part of it, dusty on the lid made out of hardwood. Let alone when the house was old and spooky, far off from other neighbours’, surrounded by creepy big trees with leaves pouting at the top that it gets dark early in a day. The “kemenyan” scent was the fragrance of choice in the house – perhaps due to Ambi Pur was not in business yet.

For some odd reason we found it ridiculous to ask adults whether the skull was really in there or not. At least that was the talk among us kids. We kids believed what we decided to believe. It was also said that, when past midnight, if you were to bring an egg as an offering to the spirit, you’d see a long slithering tongue protrude over licking the egg in your hand but your life would be spared. It wouldn’t break the egg, left it intact but once you crack open, you’d find it empty.

I had a funny idea together with my buddy Ariff. We planned for an offering just to see the slinking swathe of the ghost’s tongue feasting on egg.

On that particular night as planned, we were all ready but it was a bad start when neither one of us wanted to hold the egg in hand but just to be a spectator. I had the egg stolen from granny’s fat chicken in the den. After some arguments in the dark, I gave in when we came to term that he had to be next to me all the way through, holding hands. There we go; I was the one with the egg in hand that would be the master of the show.

We walked ever so slowly approaching the bomoh’s house with the tempayan as a spot marked as X. You couldn’t imagine our heartbeats at that moment even when we were actually still some 100 meters away from the spot. Goosebumps were like thousands of small nipples enveloped the whole body, hairs sticking up like a porcupine. It felt like the heart was jumping off the chest. Every tiny sound of anything seemed to be too outrageous. In the compound of the house, some 20, 30 meters away from the target, it was so dark that we could hardly see each other’s face but the path we walked was not strange to us.

After number of stops and hesitance, double-checking on our motivations and the barometer of our confidence, we were finally under the roofed side of the house with the tempayan was only some 5 meters away at the “tiang seri” (major pillar) under the house. The moment we were about to duck for head clearance to enter beneath the house floor, I felt Ariff’s hand jerked as if he was puling off, brought a heavy gust of blood in me, not to mention sweating profusely, breathing ever so short. In reaction to that, I shuddered just as much. Upon feeling I had the same reaction; Ariff displayed sign of aggravation. I swear I could hear his heartbeat racing with mine, even louder when we hit the same note at the same time.

It happened in just a matter of seconds when the fusion of scare in us escalated rapidly from double to triple, from triple to quadruple and kabaam-boom just like the multiplications of nuclei joining together in atomic fusion of the atomic bomb. And so did to what entailed in our chaotic reactions whether to defy or to recoil from our hallucinations and deliriums created in our minds as if we were cornered by spirits, with long, slithering and menacing tongues everywhere around us. As far as I can remember, I took a step back. Ariff did just as many but with greater speed and longer span, followed by my other step back with a speed to counter his but overdone. Then he stepped back faster and longer. I copied and added, so did he. And it went on and on in that short period of time until we finally found ourselves split and running like crazy, just followed our gut feelings not knowing what we would hit in the dark. “Hungga sapa kecik ppalo-ppalo” (read: Run helter skelter until the head shrinks). That must be the fastest run in my life that possibly beat the hell out of Ben Johnson of my age.

Fortunately all trees were left unharmed and we didn’t hit square to the barbed wire fence when we maneuvered the tough corner that would put Michael Schumacher or Mick Doohan to shame, escaped with only some cuts I called it scratches that good enough to bleed and had it nursed for weeks. We were also lucky for not trampled into cow dung, except for the torn kain pelikat that had to give way to serious punching of long steps taken with legs spread wider than the rhythmic gymnasts would – as stupendous as a speedy-chicken Road Runner.

The egg was dropped somewhere at the back or it could’ve had crushed in my grip. The grip was perhaps so forceful that if it was a rock in my hand, the rock would’ve turned diamond. I can testify to that slimy thing in my hand that I later found, it was the crushed egg – confirmed it was not cow dung.

And I became the prime suspect for the missing egg that tagged with a serial number and bar-coded by granny!

Just another foiled mission for a close encounter with the spirit and ghost, as what I thought, but I actually met many "ghosts" and "vampires" in the broad daylight in the real life.

What about you, met any ghosts before?

Note: Now I am developing a habit of asking question at the end of my entry.

WHO’S HAPPIER?

2007-02-05T11:48:00.000+08:00

Life is about struggling and striving. Life is about fighting. And winning! Life is about enjoying good living; to certain extent we might want to indulge ourselves in flashy, exorbitance and luxurious livelihood for good measure.

When I am at the apogee of my own easy-me-philosophy, I would say to myself, luxurious living is just like when you are holding your pee for hours that your bladder is about to burst and there you are at the toilet bowl enjoying it with the eyes closed in ecstasy, hence, you don’t want to trade for anything else in this world. Luxurious that is.

Perhaps, it’s not luxury as what luxury is but what luxury would bring.

Since I am not trained to be that sophisticated in life, I have a feeling that I can enjoy my RM 10 better than others spending their RM 100. May be I can sleep soundly and wake up happily in a master bedroom of my 2-storey end-lot terrace house in Saujana Utama than an opulent waking up in his flush bedroom overlooking a swimming pool in his 3-and-a-half storey mansion in Country Heights.

Or may be he is actually far happier, and I am only a fool for being imbecile and moronic for thinking that way? He could be relishing for his fine champagne at the back of his chauffeured driven stretch, laughing, while I’d be busy checking on possibilities of meeting him with his secretary to knock a deal or two.

Or may be the unpretentious chap with 7 small kids without shirts sleeping in a hall with mosquito coils stop burning, in the slump of a squatter area in Keramat, is waking up a happier person?

Who knows, may be an indigenous man of Orang Asli tribe deep in the jungle of Gombak wakes up in his makeshift hut to the traces of the aroma of last night's roasted wild boar in the fire and yet have a whole world in his grip, the whole universe funneling into him? Happier!

Happiness, in a sense of word, it is too broad a scale for one to rap it up cleverly. A banal line of cliché we often heard, happiness is subjective and hence, definition-wise, it is an emotional state that is characterized by feelings of enjoyment and satisfaction. A great philosopher, Aristotle, stated that happiness is the only thing that humans desire for its own sake. Men sought riches not for the sake of being rich, but to be happy. Those who sought fame desired it not to be famous, but because they believed fame would bring them happiness.

In the context, I think it is the same thing when I was in my stride having my dinner with “ulam” and “ike tawar” to go with “budu”. And... I love “ike singge” and “ikan rebus goreng” too – I’ll put aside those lobsters. If I were to equate to what I understand philosophically, it’s not the things I eat that make me happy but the enjoyment and satisfaction of eating those that makes me happy.

But nothing compared to the time when you are all alone with God in the middle of a quiet night crying and weeping on the prayer mat with a tinge of hope for forgiveness for the sins you had done and God trades you up with special feelings for you to go on living.

Are you a happy person? And what makes you happy?

Unlikely Meeting Place

2007-01-31T16:47:00.000+08:00

Since I am using highways everyday, it has been ages I don’t really feel the bore stiff from getting stuck in a real traffic jam. Yesterday was peculiar to my ordinary traveling. It took me two-and-a-half hours to get to office, with one meeting too many to skip. I could see the humdrum looks in the faces of other drivers when it took some 30 minutes to travel only less than 200 meters once passed the Jalan Duta toll. Only today I realized some processions were going on at Batu Caves for Thaipusam that the customary users of MRR2 would instead detour at Sungai Buluh toll, just to pile up at the exit.

I heard a car, black-colored BMW 328i, honking, diagonally to my left with merely a car-length behind as I was in the rightmost lane after passing through SmartTag inching my way. And I knew it was me he meant for he kept honking when I turned my face away – in his effort to lock eyes and get noticed. Quick assessing on my mind to look for what wrong I did. “Am I too close for comfort with other car?”, “He spot my broken tail light?“, “Is he the guy who got pissed off with my stern voice when he jumped queue at Dunkin’ Donut at Jejantas Sungai Buluh the day before?” or “Am I mistaken for someone else?”. No! Nothing!

While with little consternation I was harbouring, a smile in his face gave me clue. Great resemblance of the very face I knew some yonks ago – last seen when we bid farewell in school. It became certain when clarion features of him matched the input in my geriatric and tired database. If not for the kind of fortuity we had, we’d have had brushed shoulders in the streets, perhaps exchanging a punch or two over scuffles but we wouldn’t have noticed for who the other party was. The old school alumni sticker proudly displayed at the back screen of the car had done a bit of justice to me.

I tried not to move as he tried to catch up with me to be on my left. I rolled down the window almost simultaneously as he did. It was almost at one go we confirmed each other’s schooling days’ call name and hearty laughter followed.

That laugh has brought back to the time when I carried him on the wheelbarrow in the peach dark of the night playing silly, racing with another wheelbarrow team in the football field while we were supposed to be in bed sleeping. Making funs on the possibilities of the hostel wardens may drop a bombshell on us. We spent time laughing and rolling in the grass over our foolish acts more than we were actually racing. We laughed more than it was funny. We cracked at any slightest tingle. It was not even funny when we hit the goal post, but we were still laughing like mad. Even until this day I could still laugh as much as my kids had when I relate the story to them.

When you are in the driver’s seat and you’re talking to the car driver on your left, it’s a bit awkward on your part. Hardly could hear one another. Only after a few shouts so then we realized we were still as silly as when we were racing using the wheelbarrows those days, I then asked his mobile number.

I was fully aware that when after too long a halt and the car in front start moving that creates space in front you, the driver at the back would be itching for you to move even a yard or two. I could see a gentleman in his Honda Accord behind me started showing choleric expression in his face when enough space for one car in front of me.

It was time to roll up the window and start calling up on the mobile. May be this week neither one of us is in position to make arrangement for a meet up but very soon we will.

GAB: Old friends are incomparable to the newly-met friends. What more when they are childhood friends. And I wonder how the friendships like when it is through the net? Chatroom or Blogosphere! Any idea?

Men Are At Risks Too!

2007-01-30T11:10:00.000+08:00

Ladies who are generous in the chest department have always caught my attentions. I hate to say this as if I am opening up my own can of worms, especially in writing – in a blog, of which what’s written is considered as the reflections of what’s on the writer’s mind. It can be read by people who may or may not know me in the real life and it could be perceived wrongly by readers. Perhaps some might get offended. But reality has it. Manal used to describe me in her comment as, GAB: A doting father, a persevering husband, man's man who likes it heavy at the top and resourceful nonetheless.

The trait of liking heavy at the top doesn’t blend well with other traits as a man who appreciates love and loving, it seems. Or does it? Manal has got PhD under her belt while I don’t; perhaps she knows better than me what she is talking about. So I pull myself down to believe what she said, a great deal to my penchant anyway.

Well, to figure it out as a levelheaded person, yes, nothing’s wrong with it. It is only wrong when one is a hypocrite, a quack to his own self, even. Say one thing meant another – loathed the outmoded dressings and observe its etiquette religiously and yet not wearing underwear himself. Got it? Nobody in the right mind would slide fingers into his pants to find it out. Would you?

But, wait a minute! Are you saying I should’ve kept it to myself and not necessarily have it written down? Oh boy, I can never get away with smart alecks. If that’s the case, I am doomed with my own words.

Be it!

That was just the preamble. I was actually browsing through the net to gain better knowledge on cancer, breast cancer only came to my attention a while later. The thought of cancer in general is scary somehow, with its mockery, when you have it; you have it, regardless of what. Prevention measures are just so much to curb the inaugural of it and medical doctors are in fact still in lurch over its actual cause. The closest we can get thus far just know the contributing factors of it and the best thing to do is to wean away from those. Of the hardest one is when cancer cells run in your blood “genetically”. The experts are still debating over this possibility though. Let them be.

Talking about cancer, breast cancer, I am annoyed by another fact. Unlike many of us think, breast cancers among men, actually is not a strange thing to happen even though it is prevalent among women. According to the report by the National Cancer Registry, in 2002 and 2003 there were 56 and 24 cases of men diagnosed with breast cancer in Malaysia respectively. Statistically small in number but it exists.

My layman apparition when it comes to breast cancer in men is underlined on persons who are overweight with palpable bacons dangling from their chests just like women. And, of course my fact is not substantiated medically. Though, at this juncture, I stopped for a while checking on how I am doing. And, entertaining flashes of a figure that I had known when I was little.

Pak Ngah Pak Mat, I fondly called him Tok Ngah since he was a brother to my granny, was known to be wandering around village in his kain pelikat, shirtless, with only kain lepas hanging on his shoulder. He was a full-bodied man with superfluous flesh if not fat to tolerate his body frame that when he sat down, his breasts would droop and resting on his round and happy tummy. They moved in pace with his breathing, even much more interesting sight to see when he laughed. It amused me as a kid seeing that. I can barely remember when I would go fondle them (with his consent). I wouldn’t have done that if I was already in school – I must be very small still. I’d be playing with it minutes after minutes until perhaps he got annoyed, then his tone of voice told my senses to quit niggling. And it happened again in the next meet.

Tok Ngah had nothing to do with breast cancer to relate to what I am writing here but the first thought came to my mind when I naively theorized; overweight men are most likely would develop big and meaty chests and hence susceptible to breast cancer.

Somehow if we look into the contributing factors in the table below, the food we eat contributes the biggest (not necessarily being fat).

Just to make myself happy with my unfounded theory, based on the factors in the table above, I’d say, what is food and eating if not related to gaining weight, be overweight and get fat? When you trash in more food than your body ever needed, chances are, and you will be overweight and get fat. When you are fat, rule of the thumb for men said, you will experience meaty chests as good as a user of 42D size. But not necessarily for ladies I supposed, I can swear Dolly Parton never made such impression on me as being fat to be her as her.

Now I am happy!

So gentlemen please consume good and healthy food and eat less to remain healthy and happy. If you already have those unwanted meats dangling from your chests, I don’t really suggest for you to waste your money to pack ‘em up with the brassieres. As an alternative you can borrow it from Jokontan! (Kidding, man!)

La Isla Bonita

2007-01-25T14:47:00.000+08:00

We were walking along Colley Avenue on that evening in spring.

That was minutes after Razin and I arrived from Hampton-Newport News looking for the unplugged albums of Black Sabbath, Judas Priests or Deep Purple in one old music store there. I particularly liked the classic look of the store owner with heavy traces of a hippy in 70's, hardly an inch without tatoo on his body but damn nice a guy. Not for what we went for, we came back with a rare piece by Eric Clapton instead. I was a proud owner of the track that contains fancies of the unreleased songs for album even some came in with raw string works.

We were about to step into the O'Sullivan's Wharf when I pulled Razin’s hand to draw his attention to such a pleasant bona fide tune coming from the music store nearby. I always loved that kind of rhythm. I could feel inside me grooved on with jigs on every beat of it.

I convinced Razin to delay a bit going in despite of his protest, kept on whining of empty stomach. O’Sullivan’s could wait for us as much as Lafayette River below, always there for ages. Those Oyster Rockefellers could wait for Razin as well. But, I couldn’t wait to have my curiosity answered. In haste, I lead Razin to the store and the first thing I did once reach there, I went straight to the counter and asked the lady whose song was it.

It was “La Isla Bonita” by Madonna, just a day old in the market. “La Isla Bonita” means “The Beautiful Island” in Spanish.

This morning, at Jalan Duta, in my morning-crawl ritual to get to office, I didn’t have heart to listen to Fara’s Crazy Frog CD and haphazardly pushing buttons on the steering wheel from one radio channel to another; from Sinar FM to Hot FM, from Mix FM to Lite & Easy, from ERA to Yusri KRU (no such channel), back to Sinar FM.

Lo and behold. Halim Othman was kind enough to play La Isla Bonita this morning by the time I tuned to Sinar FM. The moment the opening of the song was aired, it brought back all the memories of my younger days. Felt like all the images came rushing, bottlenecked on my comprehension for a moment. Out of the suddens I felt like I was all alone on the road. That Halim guy perhaps of the same age group as I am, almost the same time as Juliza Adlizan, a now singer cum vocal instructor who read musics, when was in the States. My presumption is based on the selections of songs he has and his “in-depth” knowledge in old songs. May be he gives the impression of him as a young dude due to his bachelor title. Is that makes me old for having married and have kids? Anyway, thanks to him, he has made my morning.

While driving, I refused to entertain thoughts on works. Instead of the regular airtime of wife & kids broadcasted in mind, my focus was narrowed to the song that now filled up my small space, “La Isla Bonita”.

Last night I dreamt of San Pedro
Just like I'd never gone, I knew the song
A young girl with eyes like the desert
It all seems like yesterday, not far away….

Tropical the island breeze
All of nature wild and free
This is where I long to be
La isla bonita
And when the samba played
The sun would set so high
Ring through my ears and sting my eyes
Your Spanish lullaby

My mind went to all islands; from Seychelles to Sicily, Barbados to Pulau Kapas, from Guam to Tioman, to Pulau Perhentian and then, settled at Seychelles – due to what I recently read about my respected friend, Idham has experienced.

“Damn! That guy’s lucky while I am still here seeing my regular Guthrie – PLUS – Jln Duta – Mahameru route”. Oh, by the way, “You are doing OK there, trust me, your hair is fine, give a room for a little extra pound – it won’t hurt you, and you are still as handsome as ever”.

Lollies' lots were in the picture as well. When it hits on 'a young girl with eyes like the desert', it has brought me to the Wadi Basking thing, forts and fortresses, sands and dunes. "One day I’ll be there Lollies, I’ll see it with my naked eyes".

Como puede ser verdad? That’s the opening line before the song proper comes in, means, “How can it be real?". Errr.. I took some Spanish before for my elective but now too little traces of it registered in my memory apart from some profanity words, vulgars that refused to go off. Rogelio, a friend from Guerrero, Mexico, was responsible for teaching me those. It claims permanent spot in the head when learning while having big laughs. And… Como puede ser verdad? How can it be real when Baddin sneaked into my mind for a second or two? "You have nothing to do with the island on my mind, kiddo!" I’d better ask his mom.

A white Porsche Boxster came squeezing into the lane I was in. I didn’t mind to give space for him. As a matter of fact it compliments well with the look of it and the imaginations I had, to be in front of me with the song on the background. I could feel the spirit of it surged in.

“La Isla Bonita!”

“I am on my way to office!”

Today’s Your Day, May Be Tomorrow’s Mine

2007-01-23T17:33:00.000+08:00

To be stranded on the road or highway is the last thing motorists would want to have when commuting.

In numerous occasions, I would stop over and try giving helping hands on the stranded motorists along side of the road. For my own consumption, I find it satisfying when I stop over; to see the thankful looks in their faces for having someone concern enough to at least ask what their problems were. Sometimes nothing much can be done. But when some helps are delivered, they can get on the road again, I just love to see their happy faces.

Tell that to me, I was in the situation once when my car engine simply died at the traffic light, ran out of gas. It didn’t surprise me because I knew the car I was driving had a faulty fuel gauge all those while. I was a bummer in that sense for not spending only an hour of my life to get it fixed at the mechanic’s while I would only have to sit there in the fully air-conditioned waiting room reading car magazines until the mechanic comes to me and says “Siap!”. Instead, I had fun guessing when the gas would dry out based on the mileage traveled. With your own car, you’d know the fuel consumption well but not all the time you can get it right.

That’s what had happened. The car stopped, disrupting traffics. Small kids at the back in their evening ride while their mother busy preparing for breaking fast at home. With just minutes to spare before breaking fast, least expected people would stop for you. I tried to push the car. Pushing a Volvo was just like pushing a bulldozer, damn heavy. The gears set free, the door opened, and with all my might tried pushing from the side while still have to control the stiffened steering wheel and prepared to jump in to hit the brake if necessary. Gosh, if one was looking at me with that kind of look in my face, with the hardened loaves of butts sticking out in the air when I was in full throttle pushing, one would sure chuckle. Hardly a yard moved.

How happy I was when a group of young men in an elaborated Satria full of stickers with sport rims and spoilers and sub-woofers beating to the sound of music stopped over to help. From the cigarette smell in them I knew it too well they were not rushing anywhere for breaking fast. But, out of courtesy, I still voiced out my worry for them to be late for their fast breaking, and of course they said don’t worry. They helped me pushed the car to the side and get the fuel from a gas station some 3 km away. You guys sinful for not fasting but sure rewarded for your kindness!

On the turn of the Year 2007, I had a run on Guthrie Highway heading to my house in Saujana Utama. From the distance I saw a van in distress signals pulled over close to the guard rail. I switched to leftmost lane, slowed down the car and prepared to stop. And did. I hurried down just to see a family of foreigners – a father, a mother, two teenagers – a boy and a girl and a 3-year old toddler, of which later I learned they were from Australia. Before I opened up my mouth to ask what the problem was, the time I was walking to their vehicle, I already saw big smile in both the adults.

The gentleman holds up his hands in “kow-tow” style that reminds me my friend Alice Lee would have done when she thank me, and say To-Che, To-Che. It appeared that they had no mechanical problem with the vehicle. They were just busy studying the map. The time I reached their vehicle they had already had all figured out, and my help was least needed. They just showed their appreciations when someone care enough to stop over and ask. The way they thanked me made me feel like I didn’t deserve for what I did – just merely stopped over and asked. I walked back to the car feeling somewhat proud – feeling like a true countryman giving good impression to foreigners especially in the wake of Visit Malaysia Year this year.

Only last week, I was on my way home, going through Mahameru, not far from Istana Negara, I saw a Proton Iswara with hazard lights on in the mid of rain, slowing the traffics even more. Without second thought, I pulled over and stepped out with my EconSave umbrella to help. There were two couples in the car. It seemed that they had been there for the past 20 minutes, trapped in a car. They looked astounded over me smartly dressed in office attire with the blue tie on stopped over to help. And it was raining some more. After asking what the problem was, I asked the driver to open up the hood. I bent down checking because it appeared to me either starter or battery or distributor went faulty because it did not ignite. I asked the driver to start the engine when I was looking in it. It starts! Honest to God, I did not touch anything except I was just looking to determine where the wire goes. I had my fair share of surprise as much as they were happy but I didn’t claim credit in front of them. Instead, I asked them to send for wiring check once they safely reached their destination.

Next time around if you happen to have flat tyres somewhere and a Good Samaritan stops over offering help, it could be me. That is only if I would be able to determine someone in trouble ahead and still within braking distance of my normal cruising speed of 160 km/h.

Of The Life Pattern Encrypted In the Big Book

2007-01-17T08:44:00.000+08:00

It was on Sunday morning a couple of days after New Year, decades ago. Sunday in other places is a day to wind down but not in the East Coast of the peninsular.

Together with a girl from the neighborhood, Anie, we tagged along our old folks walking on the bank of the rice field for our first day in school. By the time we reached school, our shoes were substantially wet from the dew on the tips of the grass we ploughed through, kemuncup stuck on socks. Mud splattered here and there.

Kindergarten was a strange word, none in the area. I only knew such thing as kindergarten when I was bigger. To be put straight into primary one, I didn’t know what to expect nor had slightest idea on what they actually doing in school. There we were, crammed up into a classroom of more than 40 pupils, seated in the front row, amazed with the big yellow ruler rested below the blackboard, startled seeing the feather duster hanging on the wall behind teacher’s desk.

I met many new friends. All sort of friends including the ones who stick out their tongues when our eyes locked, those who like to make funny faces with eyes crossed, push up the nose tip and snorts and handful of them who would quietly scratch their crotches. Not uncommon to find the ones sporting gooey stuff oozing from the nose. One or two that would cry at slightest provocations. And it was not short of fun.

Learning strikes me as an interesting thing to do. It didn’t take long for me to get hold on my learning after mastering the correct way to hold pencil and to write a letter ‘A’ that can be recognized as an ‘A’. Sometimes ‘S’ faced backward, ‘N’ suffered the same fate and “W” with extra zigzag. Agitated but determined, I dropped a tear of disappointment in my attempts to twist the tail of ‘g’ but it didn’t work, exhausted the eraser. A tear dropped right on ‘g’. Rough if not clumsy application with the eraser on the watery spot, it punched a hole in my exercise book. And more tears dropped.

Not long after, I discerned such thing called exams too and to everyone’s surprise, I was numbered first in class. I was oblivious. In any other exams, in any terms, I was then always top in class. Anie happened to be behind me all the time if not trailed by two steps. Me smart kid? Nope! I look at it in different way. It was just God’s way of offsetting me on being inopportune and sad kid as an orphan for a feeling of self worthiness. I did nothing. God set it up for me. So then, being top in class had turned out to be impermeable throughout the primary years.

There were times when medical team from district health center made visits on us for health checks or vaccinations or dentistry. It was seemingly so scary. Blood shoots to the head upon seeing the white Land Rover with the Red Cross on it (mind you, those days cross was used before it was changed to crescent) entering school compound, anticipating something horrible were about to happen.

It was this particular girl, a play mate long before schooling, the one that came walking with me on the first day of school, Anie that was. She suffered the worst “panic attack” among us. I don’t know what came into her mind when it comes to doctors or dentists things. Freaked out, at one time she was nowhere to be found. She sneaked out of the school; hide in the dried rice field with crops taller than her for some considerable amount of time before she decided to head home. It worried everyone including our gardener cum care taker, Pak Mail (Pok Well). It only came to everyone’s relief after Pok Well came back with the news she was behind the door sniffling at home. I took trouble to bring back her funny looking basket used as her schoolbag she left behind, after school.

In one of the medical team’s visits, as expected, it frightened her to death and she cried yet again, much to the hilarity of other pupils – making fun of her. But, I on the other hand, gave her sweets (cakelak anging) I bought from Kedai Tok Ku that morning to pacify her. Hey, she seized the “ordeal” better, except still crying when her name was called. And, her cry could be heard miles away when the needle pierced her skin.

As time went on, my routine was as such, without any clue on what future would’ve hold for me. In the first place, what did I know about the nuance of future? And why would I care? The only thing I knew, I’d walk to school everyday with friends, enjoy my meehoon and air sirap during recess, play some “Denis the Menace” here and “Sinchan” there and look forward for a playtime after school. Since Nintendo and PlayStation were yet to conceptually exist and TV sets were scarce, we had much fun playing hide & seek (nusuk), rope jumping and dekcok. Our daytime seemed too short. Like just minutes before we switched from golek para to dekcok and still halfway to “buat rumah batu”, old folks start calling us home. Darn! The bell rang much too early. It signified the day was called off and the toughest thing to do in the day awaiting – to take a bath.

Playtime, I found it amusing to look back at. Boys and girls played together. We played all sort of games hardly kids these days play. The significant thing that I would later noticed, every time in play, I’d favor to be in Anie’s team. In any disputes among us, I’d take side on her as well. I became very protective over her. Is that the sign of love as a kid and yet I didn’t know how to express it out? Or maybe I was comfortable with myself in her companion? Or perhaps simply due to I knew her much earlier, together with Ariff and Fadhil. God knows, I was just a kid.

Time passed so quickly, one year after another, from one phase of life to another.

Anie, who got terrified seeing people in white robes when she was a little girl, shockingly, fortified with her baccalaureate from a university in UK, later turned out to be much to her daily routine dealing with the bedridden and dying people (she lectures in later part). I have a theory. Perhaps, back then it was too much for her to comprehend the divination foretelling in her third eye; it perplexed, and appalled her upon seeing the fuzz on what she would be dealing in her future. Sounds a bit like a Twilight Zone!

And… the biggest twist of all… She is now my wife. Yeah, right! She’s the mother to my three lovely kids, Fara, Sam and Edrin. Uhuh! You know… the one that I’d be waking up to every morning – with either my arms belted around her tummy or apparent yet pleasant warmth of breath in my chest. It answers why God had created me without a chest like Amitabh Bachaan for if it does, she’d sneeze when her nose dived in it. In turn, I’d never know what I miss.

She specializes in Cardiovascular but never did she administrate any of the routine in her workplace on me – her mere presence in my life is enough for me to enjoy “cardiovascular treats” with every single molecule of air strongly felt every time breathed in and steady and rhythmic pounding of heartbeats that strengthen my heart.

About that vaccination scar on her left upper arm, I was there when it happened – I watched it when it was administered on her. I feel like only yesterday I was looking into her watery innocent eyes when she accepted the sweets from me while she was leaning to the wall outside the classroom facing the open rice field. It is so vivid in my recollection when I was seated just a few feet away, mimicked her crying face the time she had to brave through the jab. Little did I know, sharing of pain and agony started early for us. Least did I realize, I was not only sharing it with my play mate but also with my future soul mate.

Certainly we have a long history.

Not bad for my less-than-5-sen investment with sweets when I was a little boy, huh?

Well… Everything is written up there. We are all the products of heaven. Since we were born in heaven, we intend to have our permanent address up there, as well.

(I know she’ll be blushing reading this from her office)

Today, 17th January, is her birthday… Happy Birthday, Sayang!

Previous entry HERE

An afternoon in Ulu Tamu

2007-01-10T11:35:00.000+08:00

We had our picnic at Ulu Tamu in Batang Kali. The place is actually at the foot of Genting Highlands. The place is rather unknown and least likely choice among picnickers. Many other places are widely publicized as the spots for recreations within an hour driving radius from Klang Valley, but not Ulu Tamu. I prefer to be at the secluded areas where we may not hassle with too many people and some sense of privacy for the family.

So, on that Sunday, in the last few weeks, when my wife was away on duty down south, I brought my kids to Ulu Tamu. Yeah it was Ulu Tamu but the exact location we went to was a private property. It was some 45 minutes drive from our place in Saujana Utama, Sungai Buluh, using Guthrie Highway to Rawang and the road leading to Kuala Kubu Baru.

Well, I wouldn’t have brought the kids there if my friend Cikgu Azmi didn’t invite me to see his fish ponds nearby. He is farming out fish in 4 big fish ponds at the place and by the way it looks he is very serious in it, with tens of thousands of ringgits of investment, complete with necessary equipments & gadgets and Indonesian workers to take care of the ponds 24-7.

It was very much to the liking of my kids to be at that place. They started to pump up and got excited when the first impression of the “adventure” was, crossing the creek of 2 feet deep using 4-by-4 Ford Ranger when we got there. My saloon family car had to be parked next to the Orang Asli settlement before hopping on the pick-up truck. I kept reminding the kids to hang tight on the bar and not to lean too much outward, afraid they might fall off when the truck had to endure the rough terrain. They screamed with excitements when water starts spurting to the sides and the truck quivering and wobbling while tolerating the rough surface. It was yet another scream when the truck starts climbing more than 30-degree slope, and down. It was still safe for the kids to be at the back throughout, if not I would've not allowed them to be at the back and have them wrapped in the seats instead.

Reminds me of my hunting trip in Muadzam Shah years ago when we were tracking a deer on the back of Toyota Hilux with our double barrels. Well, this one deserves an entry of its own. I digress.

Soon after, we were greeted with breathtaking view of a watercourse amidst the thick jungle with the mountain at the back. My boys, Sam & Edrin hurried with their swimming suits and goggles once we settled our things at the makeshift hut next to the fish pond, some 20 meters away from the stream. In no time, they hit the water before their sister Fara was ready.

Nice and cool. The water was so clear, the rocks were beautiful and the water flows down to Ulu Yam, a favourite spot for picnic not far from Kuala Lumpur. Hence, my kids pissed on other picnickers down the stream on that day :-)

My three kids had a whale of time playing in the water, until such time I called them back again for another 4 x 4 ride around the fish ponds, feed the fish. Jump into the water, a break in the hut for snacks, back to the water again, holding breath underwater competition, dried leaves regatta, running around, 4 x 4 ride yet another round, creeping down the brook, chasing after small fish, hauling and stacking rocks to make a beaver dam, crumble them up, play silly games… It was heckuva time for them.

They dozed off in a car only after minutes of ride back home. All in all… it has been yet another happy time for my kids for their list.

What Past Made Me

2007-01-04T14:45:00.000+08:00

Every time I touch the keyboard with the entry for my blog on mind, my tendency is to write something of my past. I do not find it thrilling to write about what is now in my life. Whatever life I am having now, to me it’s the best life can be regardless of how bad the financial status I may be at, what kind of hardship I may be facing or what sort of worries spinning in my head.

All I know whatever suffering I may have now is nothing compared to what I’ve been through those years. And, whatever happiness I am having now doesn't erase my past history either. So to say my sad stories outnumbered the happy ones. But, they are all priceless. It doesn’t mean I am dwelling over the past; it somehow makes me feel good reflecting them back. To certain extent, it contributes to my gratefulness over life I am having now and it humbles me.

Yes, God is great. He knows what’s good for us. See HERE

Since I was not destined to grow up in the ideal family, under the shadow of a father figure and a mother to love and care, without me realizing it, I was always in a vacuum over something when I was little. It wasn’t a big deal during those tender years over the fact but it slowly started eating up on my emotions when I was a teenager.

But, I was tough (and still am). I am trained to be tough throughout my life. Physically, mentally and emotionally!

I never had complaint over poorly served food in the dining hall, neither did I complain on anything. Life has taught me to be happy with what’s in my hand and not to worry over things I never had, BUT, by no means to be complacent though.

During schooling years, some of my friends were feeling down when they were short by RM 20 to buy Adidas shoes but I on the other hand was hell of a happy boy with my Fung Keong canvas shoes.

I saw many parents attended the Parents-Teachers Day and they had big treats in the school cafeteria if not their parents brought them home cook food. And I was contented with our regular food served in the dining hall.

I saw how happy my friends were showing their parents around the school compound with their little brothers and sisters running around the turf with ice cream in hands, smeared over their cheeks.

I saw the way they part with their loved ones at the end of the day from the dormitory balcony as I had nothing to relate to my own personal experience.

I listened to them talking and bragging about promises by their parents with wonderful presents if they make good grades in the exams as I never had been trained to ask for anything.

Gosh, life is beautiful!

If God gives me a chance to have another life altogether, I’d still prefer the life I am having right from the Day 1 when I was born until now. If God allows me to be like any person I wish to be, I’d still choose to be me. That’s to show how much I cherish the life I am having. May be it was then, something was missing in my life but that something had becoming helpful in my later life. Had I not experienced all those trials and tribulations, I could’ve been hauling another set of attitude towards life altogether.

Glad to be me.

2007: ANOTHER NEW YEAR

2006-12-29T08:48:00.000+08:00

Towards the end of the year, generally, people are busy preparing for the upcoming new year. For some reasons it is obvious when January comes, it marks another page of life whether we like it or not. The ones with no specific goals to achieve will regard it as just another new year, but, for the wise persons, it serves as a reminder for the lifespan is now shortened and perhaps closer to death.

I remember stories from my old folks those days. Long before the establishment of modern life, the calendar for them was marked based on events like planting season, harvesting season, rainy season, but less notable on the turn the year. One thing for sure, what significant to them was based on their lifestyles for it would then become apparent in their way of looking at the turn of time. You may have heard of our forefathers those days referred to age of a person like the time when he or she starts to walk as a baby, when he has had his circumcision done, when she starts having menses of sorts, but nothing specific on what age they were in numbers and what year. Take for instance, the way they measure children’s schooling age was to curl the arm around the head and try to touch the ear on the other side. If it touches, that means the child is ready for schooling. The ones with big heads or short arms would then be unlucky. No wonder there happened to be cases where big boys with thick moustache like Dato' K in primary schools, far too big and hairy for the peers. There was a boy champ out in arm wrestling with his classmates, so I heard.

Well now, new year is rather something of a significant occurrence due to our lifestyles we are adopting.

Of all the many things about new year, apart from the new year celebrations and the amount of money needed for schooling kids or wrapping up things in office, one cannot help but thinking of new year resolutions. For most individuals, perhaps new year resolutions have been lined up weeks before. But, some may also get fed up with resolutions and choose not to have one because none of the past years’ worked out. Personally, I do not start having my resolutions prepared for a new year coming but I prefer to have it commences on my birthday instead. Anyway, regardless of when the starting and ending point is, resolutions somehow are the reflections of our minds on our hopes and dreams – occasionally, reveries. I consider myself as an organized person, but the irony is I never had them written down though. I prefer to have those hopes and dreams orbiting my mind, protracted vividly in a cosmic of its own. It's too personal for me to have it documented.

What ‘bout you? How do you treat your resolutions?

On working life, it’s different though. For my own organization, by this time of the year, the master copy of next year strategies in hard covers is already potted off. So to say, it seals all the corporate hopes & goals in the coming year, the collective “resolutions” to act as guidelines and reference for a year stretch – a product after weeks of brainstorming, discussing and arguing in the board room. Need not to mention throughout the course, sometimes faces are turning red when it brickbats over your unfounded suggestions and ideas. So to speak, ideas are just like diamonds in the rough, preliminary selected, then put onto the grinding machine, polished and shined and eventually put it under the spotlight in the showcase. The idea will then no longer belong to an individual but the whole team. The new and fresh ideas are not uncommon if they would affect the 5-year plan that resolute only last year and a new version of yet another 5-year plan emerges. Above all, it’s not even funny when the 5-year plan is revised and changed every year. It is a game of calculated guessing.

Managers are now busy working out on plans to meet the corporate strategies for their specific departments and sections.

Those years, I used to interpret over the directions from the board when I was a senior manager. I used to confine myself down to precision on instructions from higher management when I was a rookie in management team. I used to patch up orders from bits when I was an executive in congregating the standards set by my managers. I used to be pushed around by my seniors when I was a junior executive. During that time I would be very vocal over things I didn’t like but very serious in taking to mean in all tasks and duties. Blessed with some eloquence, many times I saw my superiors dipped their heads in the sand when I laid out my points over the big table. Sometimes it boomeranged. May be it was due to me as a young guy who thought of having a lot of ideas and capable of managing bigger things. But, when you grow older and wiser, having heavier responsibilities and get to see the maze of abstractions, you’d start to realize what’s hidden in the master plan of the organization. Bark all you want, change you may not. Sometimes you are pawned by default and coded to pit into a casualty list in order to save the commanders.

It’s all in the game.

And now my turn to set the game plan, but I am glad God has not allowed me to plan things at the expense of others.

SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDIL ADHA. I sincerely hope visitors to my blog would not get offended from my writing all these while. Forgive me if sometimes you may get offended by my words, it’s never my intention.

GAB: Happy New Year & Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha to all Moslems

(One year ago, on the date, FROM THE GOVERNOR'S DESK was born, Happy 1st birthday to my blog)

So...I answered the questions!

2006-12-21T10:47:00.000+08:00

In a true spirit of the camaraderie in blogosphere, it makes me so guilty when I am tagged and yet I don’t respond to it. I know it dues for some time already; please accept my apology Mr Idham and thank you for tagging me up. I’ve been buying time just like what I did in honoring the losses of Brad & Angie the other day.

I try to stick as much as possible to Mr Idham's edited version3.0. Now here goes…

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

GAB 101

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:

* GAB – Seriously it does! The kid in me says this nick is full of fantasy
* Jay – Some found it better to start off with the letter “J” – sounds more impactful as compared to Z as it supposed to be
* Zack – I don’t like much this name because it sounds playboyish like a nick name given to the GRO when you introduce yourself in the nightclubs.

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:

All screen names used are associated with GAB and I am comfortable with it.

* GAB
* GAB.pbp
* GAB_Pedra_Branca

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

* Goodness, I love my tummy but they pushed me to hate it. I always give excuse to myself saying, a sign of prosperity.
* They say smart people naturally have wide forehead as wide as a football field. My forehead was like Siti Nurhaliza’s when I was a kid while other kids had the hairline like millimetres away from eyebrows. And when the hairline recedes, it becomes even wider. Again they pushed me to hate it.
* In-grown toe nail – How to love something that is painful?

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:

* Siamese
* Don Corleone of Sicily
* If Idham happens to be of Panglima Hitam mine is Pendekar Megat Panji Alam

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:

* To be picked up by TV reporters to comment on the issue I am not familiar with, thus make a fool of myself before mllions of people.
* A beautiful and sexy artist stood up on me saying she loves me. That’s still not too scary but when circumstancially I’d be head over heel with her, it brings a chill down my spine. Or may me I am confused with excitement here? Someone… care to explain this to me?
* Fall into a group that being labelled as “deviants” in my pursuit of spiritual life.

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:

* Briefing by a secretary in early morning on my daily things.
* My tea break for nescafe tarik at 10:30 am
* A call from wife

THREE OF YOUR MOST TREASURED POSSESIONS:

* Cool under pressure
* Pictures of my children when they were babies in my wallet. Another way of saying, don’t grow up, please be my babies forever
* My PR skills

THREE THINGS YOU WISH YOU HAVE BUT WHICH YOU DO NOT HAVE RIGHT NOW:

* Time to spend for holidays round the world with my wife. Perhaps it’d take some 1 year to complete
* Opportunity to travel into space – I wanna see how small the earth is from distance just to relate to how small I am as a person.
* A house overlooking the bay with all the necessary machines to use on land or sea or river in the stable.

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS:

I have a lot that I equally love, too bad only three to be in the list.

* Deep Purple
* The Eagle

* Alan Parson Project

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE SONGS:

* Just Another Brick in the Wall – Pink Floyd
* Selimut Putih – original version by Orkes El-Soraya
* Hotel California

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP:

* Honesty
* A sense of sacrifice
* To be pampered

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:

* Heavy at the top will do a lot of justice
* Nice fingers
* Walking style – I love it feminine but not ultra-feminine like one can see in catwalks.

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE HOBBIES:

* Drawing & designing (with Fara on my side appreciating my work)
* Driving around with kids if I am not engrossed with my garden.
* By myself in the woods next to a waterfall or being somewhere in the busy crowd sitting there like stupid observing people . And here

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:

* Honestly, my bladder is bursting while at this point typing - toilet
* Laze around with my kids at home while school holidays not yet over
* To be away from Kuala Lumpur to a place where the pace of life is slower

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:

* Switzerland
* A remote island somewhere in the Pacific basin
* Melor

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:

* To impart as much as possible knowledge and values to my children and to let them know we’ll have yet another life together in eternity.
* To build an orphanage home – Being an orphan myself when I was a kid, my heart goes to them
* Being able to read khutbah for Friday prayer

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A Married MAN:

* Love to hear the words “Bang… makan” or “Bah… makan Bah”
* All I know I have nicely ironed & hanged shirts in the closet
* I don’t know how to buy my own underwears and socks

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A Married Woman:

* Caring & Loving, I mean very
* Down to all minute and petty things around the house (except socks and underwears)
* Always on alert over emotional changes of the house occupants.

Now, in the good old tradition of tagging - three people will carry on answering the questions .
May I therefore ask these three to do this tag.

* Woman At the Well
* Simah
* MommyAlif

VMY 2007, the island and I

2006-12-15T11:22:00.000+08:00

Come 2007, Malaysia will have Visit Malaysia Year known as VMY 2007. The government, through the Ministry of Tourism is targeting at 20 million tourists to come visit us next year – that is an awful lot of foreigners to flood in. There have been efforts to make Malaysia more attractive to world travelers and the programmes that have been drawn up to make VMY 2007 a successful one.

Those days when I was in the USA, Malaysia was rather unknown to the American public at large. I wonder is it changing much now since we first launch Visit Malaysia Year back in 1990. May be, may be not. Chances are still not that much.

I was young. I was so pissed off when I got asked from where I was; I said “Malaysia” and that kind of expressions in their faces with twitches of eyebrows, as if saying, ‘Is there such country name exists in this world?’ or ‘Is that a town in Mexico he’s referring to?’. Fortunately not being asked back like, “Is that your last name?”. Well sometimes I would allow the tête-à-tête to flow; I’d go, “Do you know where it is?” As expected, they have no knowledge of it, “Errrr… may be it’s next to Iran…?” When Iran was pronounced as Ai-Ran, enough to start making me regret for getting caught in the conversation, let alone when it made me feel like being hailed from Planet X with their poor geographical fact. The young blood in me had had it enough, I just said, “That’s right! Uganda is our neighbouring country too”. And I flashed a smile, more cheeky than phony.

But when I got asked by a brunette with hazel eyes at K-Mart, regardless of what answer she’d given, the young blood in me made a good pump, sweltering, and I did a correction starting off with the trivia like;

“D’ya know where Thailand is?”
“Yeah…”
“And… Y’know a country called Singapore?”
“A’heard that…”
“We’re in between those two countries… sandwiched in the middle!”
“Awhhh, Okay…A’havit figured. What’s your country name again?”

Considering the inviting look in her face, it didn’t piss me off much but still, disappointed.

And speaking of attracting the world to visit our country, in actual fact we have plenty of things to offer. Let’s not bother about things; by nature, we as the people are already good hosts. And, living up to what good we have, thanks to our government for attaining admirable eminence in eco-tourism, agro-tourism, education tourism, health tourism and marine tourism and some other ‘ism’ that may fall short of my recollection but definitely not “hookerism”.

We are not short of the beauty of our natural environment either. A weekend evening drive to Janda Baik is good enough for us to appreciate the beauty we have in our own backyard. We somehow are blessed with our flora & fauna, jungles & forests, hills & mountains, rivers & lakes, pristine beaches and beautiful islands.

Having said about the natural beauty, pristine beaches and beautiful islands, there is one island that very dearly to me until this day – Pulau Perhentian. Once, my friends and I considered it as our private island. I never have thought it’d become a tourist destination in later years for that tiny island was only used as a transitory hideout from storms and rough sea or may be play truant, by the local fishermen just like Pulau Kapas was.

On school breaks, I would always find reasons not to stay at home, plan out something with friends to be somewhere – camping, fishing, jungle trekking, mountain climbing, and hiking or to the very least chasing after monitor lizards in the wetland (hambak bewok). We deliberated a plan to camp out in Pulau Perhentian after viewing it from Pantai Semerak in that one term break, thought it belonged to Kelantan water – until much later after the tourism industry boomed, I learned, it’s on Trengganu side. Keyed up, it wasn’t long before we managed to persuade a local fisherman, Pak Him, he agreed to send us there and pick us up some 5 days after.

There was no such thing as paid boat or ferry to get there, no jetty to dock, no chalets, no hot showers, no restaurants and no ladies in bikinis. The island was just there isolating you from the world. It was just as immaculate as one can get to see with its flat white sandy beach, crystal clear water that makes you see the underwater marine life shows off splendid coral gardens, toss a coin in and you can see it rested on the sea bed, majestic rocks and boulders entrenched in grandiose and generous backdrop of a hill in the inner land covered by a thick virgin jungle – such a perfect contraposition to the magnificent beach front. The air was just as fresh as you can get, just like the air in Kuala Lumpur in the year 1511.

In the night, to laze around under the canopy of an open sky next to the campfire with the sweet smell of baked fish and squids on the skewers made out of sticks was simply out of this world. You’d be looking up at the sky amidst gentle puff of a wind blow and a lullaby from the waves rhythmically pounding the shore until you fall asleep before you’d finish counting the shooting stars. It had been the nicest, deepest and soundest sleep I had ever experienced in my whole life. In the morning, you’d be waking up to the sun in the horizon, feeling like waking up in a paradise. Upon glancing to the shore, you’d be greeted with the awesome display of white corals covered as far as your eyes can see while the tide was low in early morning. The corals even sparkle and shimmer in the morning light. The breeze! The dances of leaves of coconut trees! The birds! And the breathtaking sky formation with the superb reflections of colors in the clouds. Heavenly! The place was just like a missing piece in lovers’ wildest imagination, envious to bards, poets and rhymesters.

Pulau Perhentian had then become our favorite hideaway from one school break to another.

Perhaps, subconsciously, that was the starting point where I fantasized over having my own island, without me knowing; later in the turn of millennium I’d still be obsessed over the abstraction, even claimed to be the governor of an island – at least for the nick name in my blog.

Pulau Perhentian has a new face now. I went there when I first came back from overseas. I was bewildered seeing what I saw, the way it has changed. The beauty that I once adored was rather gone. The sands were not as bright anymore with those small dunes trail-blazed the foot marks everywhere and corals were no longer plentiful. No more floating coconuts around. No more the serenity and tranquility as I saw decades ago. The island has lost its dazzling smile of yesteryears and the glittering leer takes a turn. Now, the beautiful face from the makeover is just the “commercial beauty” of it, just like how L’Oréal and Avon do the magic on the beautiful wannabes.

I walked around didn’t know what to feel. Happy to see the island was now deluded with new charm and attraction that can be enjoyed by many and at the same time feeling like something was missing. But, at least I could still find those rocks that we used to sit on while sipping our Kopi Cap Badak and laughing and giggling over silly jokes.

…and only those rocks still remain as beautiful as ever.

Note:
I dedicate this entry in honor of a late friend in our pack, Md Ariff Md Yassin. He passed away in 2002 due to liver cancer. I was in the island less than a month after his passing. I went up the hill searching for a boulder overlooking the open sea that we used to rest on while venturing through the entire island. It amazed me when I saw the blurry words on it, “ARIFF WAS HERE” still survive after so many years. The irony is, only his could be found but not others'. I sat there and cried. Al Fatihah to Yeh (Ariff).

When Junks Mean Something to You

2006-12-11T16:29:00.000+08:00

Not this type of junk I am referring to in this entry, but the real junk.

Writing is an everyday thing to me when it comes to notes, documents and journals. I have been writing almost everyday ever since many, many years ago long before this blog thing came to existence. Half a page daily is rather a must while some can go as long as 3, 4 pages. Of course they were all meant for my own consumption mainly on the technical things that people may get puked reading those; even I personally have no heart to read them again. Out of those personal journal thing, considerably only a few about tell-story things like the day when my car hit the back of a pick-up truck, what type of ice cream I had at Baskin Robins, my daughter’s slippers swept away in the ditch, spilled over mee bandung and dirtied my new John Master shirt, my Davidoff fountain pen bleed, stained the niple and stuff.

There are more than 1,000 personal journals or rather notes in the folders embedded in the company local server, little I realized before until recently I had the records transferred to a new local server with bigger capacity. Well not that those personal journals meant much for security to be kept in the server but other important things are, such as aspx files with asp.net, C# and other geek playthings that may bore you to death – graphic designs, programming source codes and e-based prototypes of sorts. Those personal things such as notes and journals just happened to jump on the bandwagon during the server transfer exercise.

Little serves the purpose keeping, thought of deleting those files and folders but considering the time had consumed and the past histories, the aesthetic value of it when it went through age, I decided not to. My network engineer came asking me whether to delete those folders or not, I said, DON'T just keep it but also burn it on CD as well for back up. How do you like that?

I found myself more habitual rather than addicted keeping old things. May be in some ways it tells what kind of personality I do possess. My wife prefers to get rid of old stuffs, considered junks to her but I on the other hand love to have them stored. Justly as I said, it serves little purpose but every once in a while I would scavenge through old things and I would spend hours entertaining thoughts over certain things that would activate my hindsight; musing retrospectively upon seeing it. For instance, what would you feel when you see your daughter’s first walking shoes? It is so tiny and cute. And now she’s a big girl that even blushes once walk pass a group of guys thinking she was inadequately dressed-up to be seen by them. What’s in between from those tiny walking shoes until her as of now that even fancies designer's shoes and 3G mobile phone? Definitely the whole history comes playing right before your mind.

Hey I still keep handwritten notes by my friends during the last day schooling, many, many years back. I brought with me kain pelikat written with laundry no. using permanent ink on it when I went abroad for studies – reminds me of hostel life, and even brought it back to Malaysia. I still have ticket stubs of the concerts I went to. My sons’ robot toys without arms. Sometimes I would find notes written on tissue paper nicely filed that suggests the idea was coined and pre-conceptualized during my meal time or casual discussion over a cup of teh tarik. Piles of boarding passes; the one that I adore is the boarding pass that meant for me to board but the plane crashed before I did. See here . I tell you, I keep a lot of junks. So, what junks do you keep?

Today I have another alternative that I may pick and choose some of my daily personal notes to be put in my so-called blog. I am fond of writing craps in my blog. That matters not to me. All I know, it keeps on adding one entry after another. When it comes the time, I think I’d look at it as something hard for me to get rid off, as well.

Grieving the losses of Brad and Angie

2006-12-07T13:08:00.000+08:00

I don’t want this thing to be too long overdue before I put up in my blog. I have been buying time to spend just 15, 20 minutes of my life tormenting my keyboard to honor the passing of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Silly? No! They were once in my life.

They were gone. Died is the closest possibility. Back in my mind I still harbour hopes to see them alive because I don’t see the remains of their bodies anywhere. No graves, no memorials to drop a rose or two. Well, don’t be alarmed, they were just our pet hamsters named after those two celebs.

Fara was about to show to her friend Aisyah our celebrated “mice” when they were nowhere to be found. The cage door was left wide open. She yelled out hoping either Sam or Edrin or even I took them out for play, less likely for her mom though. My wife stopped messing with her things in the kitchen, hastily came straight to our indoor rock garden, but less dramatic unlike the scenes one may see in the Malay tele-movies with the spatula in hand. Sam & Edrin rushed down from the family hall upstairs. I was just meters away in the comfy of our living room, the same spot where I was seated when I received a pleasant surprise last night – Mr. Idham called from as far as Jeddah. Hey, thanks for the call bro. It means a lot to me. Anyway, right after the yell by Fara, I became the first “investigating officer” to arrive at the scene.

Soon after, we established that Brad & Angie were missing. I could see the frustration in Fara. Not too obvious in Sam and Edrin though. It bothered me a little, bothered even more seeing Fara was about to drop her tears. And did. My wife was bothered too. In flash I started recalling Fara’s passion in taking care of them with the weekly grooming - shampoo and blow-dry. The way their bottoms swayed when they walked on the rug. The time when Angie jolted; as much as I did when I unintentionally cut a bit on her tail stub with scissors during grooming session. And the day when my three kids spent hours playing and pampering them. Uhh… What a lucky “rats” they were!

I had a theory. The night before, my wife replenished their food. She closed the cage door, perhaps it didn’t snap. It became ajar when Brad with his fancy knocked things around, he’s not just confined to knocking on Angie alone, and the door opened. They crept out thinking the whole world was a stage and thought they were helluva actors to do the acts; not knowing the harsh reality of life awaited them in the real world.

I’ve seen many times our neighbour’s black cat drooled, eyes sparkled seeing those two ham-celebrities. I even caught him behind the shoe rack peeping, stalking and lurking on the two a few times before. Or may be the cat was just admiring Angie’s sexy lips. I couldn’t imagine if that cat was a techno savvy cat equipped with gadgets & gizmos, cameras and video-cam. If it was, the cat could’ve been a paparazzi-cat, camp outside to catch a glimpse of Brad & Angie with his Nikon D50 DSLR camera . He may have blackmailed Brad & Angie over the gross act of the two when Angie was feeling sexy while Brad was doused with far too much of testosterone that jinxed him up. Blame it on kuaci.

Anyway, that black cat was my prime suspect. He may have mauled and feasted on Brad & Angie, but propitious for him to scot free; cat can’t be charged for murder and no lawyers in the right minds will take trouble to prove him guilty in the court of law.

GAB: Reminds me of a book I read many years ago,

Pet Sematary (Cemetery) by Stephen King